Page 163 of Monsters in Love

A frustrated roar followed them, the extinguished torches igniting and flaring high down the hall, the walls rolling as tendrils from the vines reached out toward them in a manner that she had seen before. Her fingers tightened into his mane as she watched the walls just behind them. The vines swarmed together, reshaping their masses around the stones that dragged inward until they reformed into a terrible face that had haunted her nightly since her arrival.

Its mouth opened wide, jagged sharp teeth of milky stone opening for her, a stench of rot surrounding her from all the gore it had consumed over centuries. Whatever benevolent spirit it may have begun as, there was nothing left of it but madness and hunger.

Vines rushed toward them like hundreds of arms, and Vicky screamed, drawing Asterion’s attention to what lay behind him. She heard his powerful heart stutter beneath her ear and his bellow of rage and anguish.

Readjusting her weight, he swiped out with one clawed hand, tearing through a rope of the vines hurtling toward them with the force of a honed blade. The resulting enraged scream from the labyrinth was deafening as its vines writhed with an angry buzz of hornets and its face bulged from the walls, eyes widening horrifically as its mouth opened grotesquely even wider.

There was no escaping it.

Every corridor Asterion turned into, the walls rolled and reformed into that terrible visage following close behind them, the torches flickering and roaring on the walls, casting brilliance and shadows all around them as they descended deeper and deeper into the increasingly narrow halls of what she suspected Asterion called the lower levels.

The atmosphere turned dank and musty from the water she could see dripping down the walls, in some cases running in heavy streams, wetting the floors every time the walls rolled and fractured. Torches sputtered and flared in response to the moisture, somehow kept alive by a force that Vicky didn’t understand. Several nearest to them nearly died as the wet tendrils of the vines slapped at the fire in an attempt to bank the flames, while others streaked along the floor and wall, slapping and writhing in their fervor to get to them, Asterion dodging them with a sure-footedness, never once breaking his pace in their flight.

Worried that the vines would succeed and plunge them into darkness, Vicky turned her face up toward his ear and shouted, “Asterion, the torches?”

His head turned, and he chuffed out a dry chuckle. “Do not worry for the torches. Our home may have been uprooted, but my sister’s magic holds and lights the way. It is just a little further now. Once the labyrinth takes form, it is limited by its own laws in this place. We are safe as long as we can stay ahead of it.”

“How the fuck do you know that?” she shouted.

He just gave her a quick grin and hooked a left.

The labyrinth screamed, its maw twisting in shrieking denial. Walls surged and rolled more violently, its mouth opening to release dark vines that whipped toward her face with alarming speed. They managed to get within an inch of her face, scarlet thorns snapping at her when Asterion shifted her weight and lifted his shoulder at an angle to block it. He took a sharp turn, and the wet sound of ripping flesh was loud in her ears as flecks of something wet sprayed against her. She stared at the splattered blood just as the labyrinth gave another ferocious screech from the corridors.

Numbly, she shook her head. It wanted her. It had always wanted her, and he had defied it. For that, his home was destroyed, and now he was injured. Tears slipped down her cheeks as the raging of the labyrinth grew louder. He was going to die for her… and she couldn’t bear the thought of it.

Twisting her fingers into his mane, she tugged sharply, drawing his attention. He canted his head toward her, his ear turning attentively as he took another sharp corner, nearly jostling the breath out of her in the process.

Gasping, she dragged in another breath, her fingers tightening in his fur with dread for what she was about to demand.

“Asterion, you have to put me down!” she wailed, as a barbed vine came close to biting deep into his neck, dodged only at the last moment.

His enormous chest heaved with exertion. He had to see reason.

“Please!” She choked on a sob, and his heavy arm curled tighter around her. “You can’t die. Not because of me. I can’t bear to see anyone else I love die. Not again.”

His horns swung in denial, arching in what would have been a dangerous proximity to her face if not for the fact that he always maintained perfect control around her, cautious of his superior size and her human fragility.

“No,” he growled. “You are mine. My mate, my heart. The labyrinth will have to find its own. I will not fail you,” he panted. “I have no intention of dying today.”

Her heart pounding in her chest, she shivered at the terrible shrieking moans of the labyrinth and breaking stones all around them, the wet leafy rattle, and the tear and snap of vines. In the midst of her nightmare, she leaned into his strength, holding her pendant tightly. It grinned at her, its blood-stained teeth gnashing. Even though his breath billowed from his lungs like a freight train, he still never slowed nor loosened his grip on her in attempt to put her down.

Gradually, its shadow rose over them, the torches dimming, dark ichor dribbled down on them and Vicky slowly lifted her gaze from the thick column of his neck to stare death in the eye. Its mouth widened, the gaping darkness filling the space behind them, the daggers of its teeth dribbling with blood.

A few more breaths and it would have them. She could feel the strain in Asterion’s muscles, his massive chest heaving against her. His great strength was failing, and there was nothing she could do to help.

Vicky ripped the pendant from her neck, her eyes falling on the labyrinth carved on the opposite side, before turning the coin in her fingers so that the worn face of Hera in profile stared back at her.

“If this labyrinth is yours,” she whispered to the goddess’s visage, “then you own all the pain it has caused. I beg you then, if ever you loved humanity, help me now.”

The icy breath of the labyrinth fanned back her hair, Asterion’s mane blowing forward, and Vicky pulled back her arm as the mouth began to descend, closing around them. Her love’s helpless, enraged roar echoed around them as the coin spun from her fingers, the dim torch light gleaming off of it golden as it flew through the air and disappeared into the dark void.

The stones around them suddenly exploded forward, the torches flaring high and bright as the mouth drew back and twisted on itself, rippling away from them with a hideous shriek, vines falling limp to the floor.

Asterion, his body shaking with exertion, turned to look back as his pace slowed to a trot. The face of the labyrinth was gone, the distant echo of its cries all that remained of its presence.

“What has happened?” His voice was thin and ragged with exhaustion, but she could still feel the tension in his body, prepared to face anything despite his weariness.

“It’s gone,” she whispered in disbelief. “My good luck charm, the coin with Hera and the labyrinth… I was so angry and frightened… I begged the goddess for help and just threw it, and it swallowed it.” She blinked slowly, turning her face up to him. “Do you think I killed it?”

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