Fable of Happiness (Fable #2) by Pepper Winters

Enough of this.

He showed no signs of waking up, and I had to be wise. While he was asleep, I had to undo the new imprisonment he’d trapped me with. Once that unsatisfactory task was dealt with, I would figure out what to prepare for dinner. Something that wouldn’t earn his wrath.

With a final look at his slumbering face, I pushed off the floor and marched to the desk by the wall. I rifled through every drawer, looking for a key to the leather leash I currently dragged around behind me.

Come on.

It has to be here somewhere.

This room had an authority about it. I didn’t need Kas to tell me that the large throne-like chair once belonged to the man he called Storymaker. His face had screamed that loud and clear when he’d woken the first time and flinched the moment he’d seen it. He didn’t need to verbalize that this wasn’t just a library to him. It’d been the hub of all the darkness in this despicable place.

I’d wondered, on the fifth or sixth day of his unmentionable nightmares, if I should move him to a different room. It seemed the shelves with their innocuous books triggered violent memories. He stared into the past and saw things I couldn’t, witnessing his family lined up before their master, waiting for instruction, praying they wouldn’t be given to a guest that night.

Despite Kas not telling me in exact paragraphs of what’d happened to him, his face did, his body did, his every flinch and grunt did. In the midst of whatever delusions his concussion gave him, I rocked in the corner with my blanket wrapped tight around me. On the nights when he was so far gone he muttered to Nyx and Wes, Neo and Elise, I’d wiped away my silent tears and cursed my cracking heart all over again. It was no longer whole. The pieces were in pieces. And those pieces were in irreparable fragments for learning what they’d all endured.

It was because of those fragments that I was now completely messed up where Kas was concerned. The sane part of me—the business-headed millionaire and successful entrepreneur—was beside herself with scorn. But the insane part of me—the love-sick dreamer who fantasized that she could be his cure—was determinedly blind to the actual real danger of living with a deranged victim.

A victim who couldn’t even acknowledge he’d been a victim.

A boy who’d grown into a man who’d suppressed each touch, crime, and wound that had wrongly been done to him. And because of my blindness, I’d allowed him to once again trap me.

You truly are one of a kind, Gem.

And not in a good way.

I sat back on my haunches, my hands still buried in useless drawers. Nothing but dust-free neatness. A few pens and perfectly stacked schematics on plumbing, wiring, and the original blueprints of building this diabolic place.

Just like everything in this mansion, the level of tidiness bordered on obsessive.

And the only person who was around to keep this poverty palace in such pristine condition was none other than the comatose man currently twitching in his sleep across the room.

Argh.

I fell backward and lay on the carpet.

What the hell am I going to do?

No answers were forthcoming. No epiphany on how to juggle a mentally broken man and my desire for freedom. I was pulled in two directions. I wanted to stay and to go. I had no idea which was right.

You could start by trying to get that damn cuff off.

Fresh purpose slipped through my limbs. I was tired. Immensely so. It seemed just dealing with Kas, even in small doses, drained me of everything I had.

With a groan, I pushed upright and climbed to my feet. Padding around Kas, still sleeping on the floor, I paused for a moment. Moonlight shone over his face, making his skin shimmer pewter in the dark. With his eyes closed and mouth soft, I could be forgiven for thinking he was a kind, wonderful man who lavished me with love and affection. He seemed to have that quality about him. He was protective of those he loved. I’d witnessed that protection. He’d sacrificed himself over and over again for his Fable siblings, according to his numerous nightmares.

A heart of gold, tarnished and dinged but still priceless, was inside that scarred chest of his. Perhaps, I would never figure out how to earn it. Maybe, this was an utter waste of time, and I should just run away now while I had the chance.

So why, as my eyes traced over his wild, long hair, his scruffy beard, and prematurely lined eyes, did my heart skip a stupid beat and yearn for him.

I didn’t even know him.

Not really.

I only knew his nightmares and not the man left behind.

So how could I explain the painful bond I felt toward him?

How could I admit that, for all his savageness, I found him undeniably handsome and struggled with hot desire whenever we were close?

Was I just like those guests who’d abused him? Was I that horrendous that I’d stayed because I was physically turned on by him, despite his tragic past?

If I was a good person, wouldn’t I shut down all feelings of hunger? Wouldn’t I treat him as my brother? Someone who deserved a hug without my heart pounding for more?

God...is he right?

Did I take advantage of him that night? The night when he was a sweet teenager who’d blushed and asked me out. Who’d kissed me so softly yet the arrow of it had somehow pierced the very fabric of who I was?

Yet, when we’d first met, he was the one who forced me to my knees. He’d commanded I satisfy him. He’d demanded I grant him sexual pleasure, proving he was willing to do to me what had been done to him.