CHAPTER 96: _ BLUNT DESIRE

The overhead speaker shrieks alive with a crackle, making the entire hallway vibrate. Heidi jerks so hard she nearly trips over her own oversized pants. Junie yelps, clutching her tunic as if the Goddess herself has just called her name for public execution. From behind them, one of the other newbies in the corridor lets out a high-pitched whimper.

Junie claps her hands to her chest with a squeak. "Oh Goddess, they’re calling us already!"

The metallic voice booms, distorted but mercilessly clear:

"Attention, Moon Blessed candidates. Your main breakfast will now be served. This meal is exclusively for those proceeding to the labyrinth in two hours. Further instructions will follow. Remain in your dorms until then."

Then the speaker dies with a hollow click.

The silence that follows is immediate and heavy. And then, like clockwork, horrified groans and despairing murmurs rise up from every direction. Someone sobs. Someone else mutters, "Two hours. Only two hours..." as if saying it aloud might stretch the clock longer.

"Breakfast? Did he say breakfast? Two hours?" Junie groans and buries her face in her hands. "They’re feeding us like condemned prisoners before an execution. We’re the last meal away from death row."

"Relax," Heidi mutters, though her stomach churns, and she feels far from relaxed herself.

Junie peeks through her fingers, eyes red and wide. "How are you not freaking out right now? They basically just told us: ’Eat up, children, you’ll need the energy to die spectacularly.’"

Heidi exhales, shoulders sagging. Her wolf, of course, is thrumming.

"Two hours?" The voice in her head purrs with relish. "That’s an eternity. Enough time for us to sharpen our claws. Enough time to nap, eat, and dream of bones snapping."

"Not helping," Heidi mutters.

Junie hears her and points wildly. "Exactly! Not helping! Do you realize what this means? We’re going to die on empty stomachs because all they fed us earlier was ramen! And now—now... they’re mocking us with a ’main breakfast.’ I bet it’s poison pancakes. I bet they lace it with demon drool!"

Heidi shakes her head and a dry chuckle escapes before she can stop it. "Junie, calm down."

"Calm down?!" Junie stares at her like she’s sprouted horns. "We are two hours away from being shoved into a labyrinth filled with monsters who would love to snack on my kidneys—and you want me calm?"

"Yes," Heidi says firmly, though her own pulse is fluttering against her throat like trapped wings. "Because panicking doesn’t change anything. Look, Junie... as long as we stick together, we’ll be fine."

She doesn’t believe her own words... at least, not fully. But Junie’s wide eyes demand reassurance, and Heidi can’t stomach being the cause of more despair.

Her wolf snorts. "Fine? We’ll be more than fine. We’ll feast. We’ll paint the labyrinth red and howl songs of victory."

"Or die horribly in the first five minutes," Heidi whispers back to herself.

Junie blinks. "What was that?"

"Nothing. Shower. I need one," Heidi mutters before Junie can press further.

In the bathroom, mildrew clings stubbornly to the tiles, the fluorescent bulb above flickers with all the enthusiasm of a dying firefly, and one of the stalls looks like it hasn’t been used in years.

Still, the promise of hot water is enough. Heidi steps out of her oversized catastrophe. The jacket that is heavy with the scent of Amias and the forest, falls to the floor in a heap. The damp chill of the bathroom licks her skin, but it’s a distraction from the sudden, powerful wave of heat that floods her body.

The image of Amias, naked and beautiful under the moonlight slips into her mind. She remembers his taut muscles, the way his jaw had been tight with a control he was fighting to maintain. She remembers the feel of his hand on her wrist, pulling her close, his breath hot against her ear. The raw, animalistic pleasure that had been building between them all night... a pleasure that had ended abruptly and unfulfilled.

A sharp, needy ache clenches in her gut like a low-grade fire that burns with an unquenchable longing. She had been a razor’s edge, a torment that was too delicious to bear... she recalls the Chapter of the night that she found herself in, and the agonizing groan of her mate’s words.

The sheer, devastating disappointment of it all slams into her again. A furious, wounded noise escapes her throat. It’s a frustrated little sound that is both her and her wolf.

"We could have had him! We could have had him and his little brothers! But he’s a coward. A coward with a girlfriend. He’s all talk and no bite! But we’re not. We can have our own pleasure! We can have it all! " Her wolf howls savagely.

As much as Heidi wouldn’t like to agree with her savage wolf, she knows she’s right. Her body is weeping from need. She can pleasure herself.

Heidi’s fingers quiver as she lowers her hand. The werewolf heat slithing through her is a live thing, an inferno that she can’t possibly ignore.

She touches herself desperately, fingers parting her clits to find her hole. The heat slams into her again, and she closes her eyes, letting her fingers explore her own body, her own power, and her own pleasure.

The desperate, needy ache turns into a hot, building pressure of sensation that makes her gasp.

Her hips tilt up, her body answering to the unspoken command of her wolf, to the primal need that is now a part of her. She’s a creature of instinct now, a creature of raw, unbridled desire.

She works herself up in a desperate motion of her fingers, her breath coming in ragged pants. A low, feral growl reverberates as she lets herself be consumed by the pleasure, by the heat, and by the desperate need to feel something in a world that is spinning out of control.

And oh, boy... She feels it. She imagines all of them... the four Alphas with their hands on her, each warring for dominance as they claim her all at once, their lengths filling her up until she can feel... f–feel...

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

Her climax is a shuddering, breathless release that makes her legs buckle.

"Yes! That’s what we do! We get what we want. We take what we want. We are not to be denied." Her wolf purrs out in a satisfied sound in the recesses of her mind.

"Goddammit. I think I want all four of them in me." Heidi curses as she forces herself to her feet.

She feels a strange mixture of shame and fierce pride. Shame for the desperation of the act, and pride for the power of the wolf that she is becoming. As for this newly found fetish of a fivesome, she doesn’t know what she feels about it except... need. A great and undeniable one.

.

.

The scratches across her arms sting when the shower spray hits, but at least it washes away the sweat and dirt clinging to her. For a moment, she closes her eyes and just lets herself exist under the stream. The roar of water muffles the world outside; the fear, the whispers, the impending doom. It’s almost peaceful. Almost.

Her wolf breaks it instantly. "This shower is pathetic. It’s a cold stone beneath our feet. A trickle of warmth. When we rule, we’ll bathe in blood. Much hotter and richer."

"Great," Heidi grunts, scrubbing shampoo into her hair. "Even bath time is a horror show with you."

The wolf laughs before fading into the recesses of her mind again.

By the time Heidi steps out, towel wrapped around her, she feels marginally less like a dumpster fire and more like a human being preparing for execution.

All of their executions...