Funny how quickly things could change. Incredible how a single look, a simple word, could undermine seven days of vows, violence, and vengeance.
I’d envisioned another fight. I’d barely slept and hidden out as if we were enemies on different sides of a war. I’d prepared to be cruel. To match his nastiness if I stood any chance at being strong enough to get home.
But...all of that tension, that waiting, that plotting, it wasn’t me. It was too much effort. It hurt. It truly hurt, and I didn’t know how to deal with that.
“The power isn’t lasting at night,” he murmured, the topic switch leaving me floundering. Even talking about mundane things, his allure, his presence, all dripped with sexuality. “I’m guessing you’ve noticed.”
Unable to see where he was going with this, I nodded slightly. I’d found it annoying at the beginning. Wary of him stalking me in the dark, I suspected he’d shut the lights off as another mind game or version of control.
“It’s not supposed to.” He licked his lips, drawing my attention to his mouth. “I think the hydro power has been damaged. Possibly by the storm the night you ran away.” His eyes burned with memories, transmitting every touch and thrust we’d shared while coated in rain and mud.
The hesitant hum of awareness between us suddenly billowed into outright heat.
My breasts tingled. My tummy clenched. My hate for this man didn’t stand a chance against my desire.
Stop it!
I cleared my throat and dropped my eyes to the knife in my hands.
He’s your enemy, Gem.
“The backup power comes from solar. The panels are old, and even though I do my best to maintain them, their output isn’t enough to run the fridge, oven, and lights for a full day. The batteries are old and past their prime. That’s why we’re having blackouts.”
I kept looking down, not sure why he was sharing such things but unwilling to interrupt his soft voice. It was the kindest he’d ever spoken to me. Simple topics of life in his valley that somehow made my heart kick and belly flip in his presence.
It did more than just make me lust, it made me question what his existence had been like after.
After the abuse.
After the masters.
After...when he was all alone.
“I haven’t stocked up on firewood yet, which is another task I should’ve started by now. Come winter, whatever electricity we do have will be used for other essentials. Heat will have to come from fire.” He came toward me, tipping my chin up with his finger.
Electricity sizzled from his skin to mine.
I shivered.
His jaw clenched.
The air positively came alive around us.
“I’ve made a list of all the things...” His finger traced up my jaw. With a hitched breath, his hand cupped my cheek, his concentration spilling into need. “Goddammit, why is it easier to want to be your friend instead of your enemy?”
The world stopped spinning.
I ceased existing.
His fingers sent hotter electricity into my blood. My knees wobbled. My lips wanted. All of me wanted.
Hate.
Remember?
He flinched as if I was the one causing him pain, hushed words tripping from his lips. “I...I’ve missed you.”
I couldn’t breathe as his eyes switched from facts to need. He hadn’t brushed his hair, leaving it dancing over his shoulders like the wild beast he was. His lips parted as his stare dropped to my mouth. He smelled fresh and forestry, and why, why, why couldn’t I stab him and run away?
I didn’t feel right. I felt twisted and tangled and—
“Don’t...” I whispered, swaying backward.
His hand slinked to my nape, pulling me forward until our foreheads touched. “Gem...”
My legs almost gave out.
Gem.
The first time he’d said my name without rancor or venom. My true name. The three little letters that summed me up as a girl, climber, sister, entrepreneur, and someone who was so utterly lost by all of this she was fragile beneath her ferocity and so, so scared beneath her cape of threats.
“I didn’t think I’d last seven days before I came to you.” His fingers massaged the back of my head, tugging on my hair, sending pinwheels of fire down my spine. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”
“Stop.” I needed distance between us. I needed to breathe.
My hand came up, knife and all, and pressed against his chest.
He swallowed a groan, nudging his nose to mine. “I’ve been achingly hard for you. I’m in fucking agony with wanting you.” He stepped into me, pressing our bodies together, revealing his wasn’t lying. “I know you’ve figured out I can’t touch myself, so imagine my pain when I know you’re in this house. When I know how perfect you feel. When I know just how incredible it is between us.”
Had I figured out he couldn’t touch himself?
When I’d jerked him off in the bathroom, he’d acted as if his cock was contaminated. When I blew him, he broke apart as if I’d given him the greatest gift.
My insides tightened with need. Dark whispers tried to convince me to set aside our war and just be. To be selfish and reckless and give into the unbearable, unexplainable, unsurvivable need between us.
You’re his prisoner, Gem.
Blinking back heavy heat, I struggled against him and myself. “That...that was before you shackled me.”
“Only because you did the same to me.” His lips grazed mine before I shoved hard and put distance between us. In one heartbeat, the games room switched from strained togetherness to outright desperation.
His face went black.
His body tensed to punish me, to prove I couldn’t deny him.
Sucking in a shaky breath, his balance swayed, all while his eyes glowed with hunger. For the longest moment, he wobbled on two things. I visibly saw them in his face. His desire for me almost pushed him into doing something that would only make me hate him further. If he took me now, he would push me into a darkness I didn’t even want to acknowledge. A darkness I wouldn’t swim out of. A darkness that sang to me even now, that lived in my blood and turned greedy for bad things.
But if I gave into him. If he gave into himself. If we gave into the madness binding us together, then...I’ll be broken, just like him.
“Christ.” He groaned under his breath, his nostrils flaring as he called upon whatever self-control he had and swallowed the scorching hunger in his stare.
The air between us suffocated with discarded pleasure and denied connection.
What did that say about me that I’d spent a week hating him, yet now I was...disappointed.
Disappointed that he’d chosen the less likely path and favored abstinence instead.
“If we...” He swallowed again, running a hand over his face. Groaning once, he shook his head as if he couldn’t quite extract himself from the spell we’d cast together. Bracing his shoulders, he let his voice slip back into facts, cracking on lust. “If we get to exceedingly low temperatures—as it did a few years ago—we’ll need water stored instead of relying on the pipes. They freeze over, you see.”
A breath I didn’t even know I was holding exploded from my mouth. I wanted to puddle to the floor. To rock on my knees in relief that I’d avoided being ravaged by a man I was horrendously confused by and shamefully regretting that he hadn’t.
He wasn’t going to touch me.
Wasn’t going to force me.
My mind hissed with ridicule at myself and skepticism at him. Was this another game? Some sick way of making me run the gauntlet of emotions? Hatred, desire, relief, regret, finally to relax in his company from sheer exhaustion only for him to pounce on me when I did?
Would I have the energy to fight him off?
Would I even want to?
And why the hell was I dangerously angry but also disgustingly disappointed that the tension between us hadn’t detonated into all out sexual war?
&nbs
p; It was this house, this valley, this man.
I’m losing it.
The knife slipped in my palm, my skin turning slippery with mistrust and misery.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
My rage exploded, causing me to grip the handle harder. “Am I okay? What sort of question is that? As if you care.”
He stilled, familiar temper swirling behind dark eyes. “I care.”
“Yeah, sure. Okay, then, I’m fine. Completely and utterly over the moon that I’m chained to a man who has no intention of letting me go. A man who makes it perfectly clear he can take me whenever he damn well wants.”
“I won’t touch you. Not today.” He caught my livid stare. “I told you, there are more important things.” A twisted chuckle spilled through his lips as he glanced down at his straining erection, trapped inside his jeans. “I won’t lie and say I can barely focus with the pain of needing you, but my head also fucking hurts, and I’m doing my best to do the right thing.”
“Why?”
He spread his hands as if even he didn’t fully understand. “If we focus on survival now, it means I get to keep you for far longer.” He stood taller and sniffed. “If I give in to what I want, then we both die. Miserably and sooner than I’d like.”
“The longer you keep me alive, the greater the chance you’ll die when I take you up on your offer of freedom.”
His stare went vacant for a second, zoning out to a blackness I couldn’t see. Then he shook his head and shrugged. “The longer I keep you alive, the greater the chance I have of being happy...even if it’s for a short while.”
My mouth fell open.
I wanted to scream.
Was this his new method of torture?
His honesty dug claws into my stupid heart.
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?” His face was urgent and intelligent. “I’m telling the truth that firewood is almost as vital as food.” No signs of deceit or danger in his voice as he inched closer. “Drinking snow works, but I’d rather not have to carry bowlfuls through Fables if I can help it. I don’t know how long it’ll be until I’m back at full strength. Plus, there are a few odds and ends to do with getting the house weathertight. Then, of course, I have the important task of figuring out what to do with our food shortage.”
He genuinely needed me to understand how his existence worked because it was my existence now too.
“I need your help, but I’m also going to teach you. You need to understand the consequences of your actions out here. You need to respect—”
“Respect you?” I stiffened, feeling judged for being naïve and using his supplies. I hadn’t deliberately sabotaged his rations, yet he hadn’t been able to forgive me.
“Respect that no one will save you if you fuck up,” he muttered. “You’re on your own.”
That final sentence reeked of his loneliness of the past decade. He’d learned that lesson firsthand. My heart lurched then shut down. My stomach fluttered with pitiful butterflies, then shot them with harsh common sense.
Stepping back, I struggled to keep my anger. I fought to remain remote and furious, but I wasn’t lying about the exhaustion. Keeping that level of hatred required an eternal fire of fury, and somehow, Kas kept pouring damn water on it.
Seeing him like this? Animated about mundane things, forecasting and planning, it all revealed a part of him that was free from all the awfulness he’d lived through. When he talked about agriculture and seasons, he wasn’t the boy who’d been raped and molested. He wasn’t the man who couldn’t face those memories.
He was normal.
He was calm and free from the demons that haunted him.
I sighed, my eyes dropping to my ankle and the leather trapping me. My back snapped straight, a constant seesaw of what he’d done and who he was, the light and the dark, the right and the wrong.
I can’t keep doing this...
“Wait here,” he suddenly muttered, marching from the games room with a slight sway.
Where on earth—
The chain pinged and slithered behind him, dragged by the matching leather beneath his T-shirt.
Naturally, I did the opposite and followed, chasing the chain, slowing as he ducked to his haunches and fumbled with the pile of links pooled in the middle of the foyer.
What is he doing...?
My heart dared skip a beat. Maybe he was exhausted too. Maybe keeping me prisoner was eating him alive, and he’d decided to free me, after all.
The ironic thing was, in that one action, he’d gain my help. My willing help. I would do whatever he asked to ensure he’d survive alone before scurrying up that cliff and going home. He would redeem himself. He could prove I wasn’t crazy with my bewildered, broken heart.
The softest sound of metal on metal echoed in the grand marble-veined foyer before he stood and tucked something into his pocket. As he came back toward me, his balance was ever so slightly off when he once again ducked to my ankle and undid the chain from the leather cuff.
Oh, my God!
He did it.
He released—
With a flick of his wrist, he snapped the chain back into place. This time, the links were far shorter than the long leash that’d given us both freedom within the massive mansion. This time, only a few feet existed between us. A tether that gave no privacy, no protection.
My fury swirled around me, heating my skin and making tears prickle behind my eyes.
I couldn’t speak to him.
I couldn’t even look at him.
So when his finger once again tipped my chin up, directing my eyes to his, I wanted to strangle him like he’d strangled me. I needed him to know just how much this hurt me. How much he punched my soul, over and over again.
“I can’t let you go. I won’t let you go. All I can offer is my word that whatever I do to you from now on will only bring pleasure. When I take you, you’ll enjoy it. When I ask you to do something, you’ll learn from it. You’ll see life isn’t so bad here...with me.”
Dropping his touch from my chin, he ran his fingers down my arm, all the way to my hand still clutching the knife. A useless, hopeless knife that I doubted I’d ever have the courage to stab him with.
Clasping his hand around mine, he brought my arm up. His touch made me burn. His hitched breath hinted he burned in the same pyre. The foyer crackled with demented flames. I shook as he brought my hand all the way up to his chest, then angled the knife until the sharp tip pressed against the small scab I’d left there a week ago from the very same blade.
And we stood there.
Silently.
Swaying.
Shivering.
“You’re going to work hard, Gemma Ashford. I expect you to pull your weight. To obey me, learn from me, and do what I ask. The moment we go outside together, we aren’t strangers; we’re partners. Do you hear me?” He put pressure on my hand, puncturing the old wound over his heart and drawing a droplet of crimson. “If you think there’s any chance in hell that you can kill me to get free, I suggest you do it now. I’ve lined up the knife. You only have to push. Do it now because I refuse to work my ass off for the next few months only for you to end it. My head hurts. I feel sick all the damn time. All I want to do is rest. And if that’s eternal rest thanks to you putting me out of my misery, then so be it.” His eyes blazed, brown and black, autumn and coal. “Choose.”
Familiar animosity and coldness marked his face, and his hand trembled around mine. His closeness made it hard to breathe while his violent honesty ripped out the final shred of my shattered soul.
For a long moment, we stood in those demented flames. We burned together. We stared and searched and cursed the chain binding us.
Not the one around my ankle and his belly. Not the one made of metal.
A different kind of chain.
One that could never be broken, no matter if I went home or stayed, no matter if he lived or died. A chain made up of two hearts that had no business joining. A
link that doomed us forever.
I started to cry.
Silent, slow tears.
He sucked in a breath as my fingers tightened around the knife.
My life flashed before my eyes.
The reunion with my brother. The coffee with my mother. The hugs from my friends. The fan mail from my YouTube followers.
All of it.
There, ready for me to take.
All I had to do was push.
A savage push into a broken man’s heart, and I could be free of all of this.
More tears fell as I looked at the knife. My shoulder tightened, and my stomach coiled for power.
And suddenly...I was done.
All my anger.
My rage.
My fury.
It all just...vanished.
Tiredness swamped me; unhappiness churned my heart.
I cried harder, quiet and wretched.
He was right.
I didn’t have the strength. I had no more energy to hate. After a week of going over every swear word and threat I could imagine, I was too exhausted to even try.
My fingers opened beneath his.
He let me go.
The blade fell to the marble, bouncing high before clattering to a stop by our feet.
For an agonizing heartbeat, I cowered beneath my failures, my weaknesses, and the fact that I’d once again given up my freedom. And then, my tears were wiped away by rough thumbs, my cheeks cupped with shaking palms.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
I didn’t reply.
I let my tears fall because they were symbols of my past. This was a funeral, and my freedom was firmly locked in a coffin I would never open. I would mourn it. He would let me mourn it because once upon a time, he’d had his freedom stolen too.
He didn’t rush me. He didn’t touch me other than to wipe away my tears. And only once they dried up did he shift away and clear his throat. His eyes burned with ownership but also understanding. He was my master now, yet he knew what it was like to be me. To have all control stripped away and be at his mercy in all things.
Fable of Happiness Book Two Page 17
