Fable of Happiness (Fable #2) by Pepper Winters

“I suggest you forget everything that ever existed outside of this valley. You no longer have a family, a career, a home. You are simply Gemma, and that is all you’ll ever be. You don’t have to worry about others missing you; you don’t have to run to be free. You no longer exist to anyone but me.”

“You’re delusional!”

He continued as if I hadn’t yelled an insult. “My advice? Don’t resist this. Just accept it. It’s easier that way.”

“Accept? I’ll never accept—”

“You will, eventually.” Brushing aside a strand of long hair that’d fallen by his cheek, he murmured, “I’m telling you from experience that there is no way out of this. The padlocks cannot be opened without a key. The chain can’t be cut, smashed, or broken. You’ve already tested for yourself the impossibility of removing that cuff. We’re bound now. Where you go, I go. Where I go, you go. I am the only thing that matters to you, just like you are the only thing that matters to me.”

“You will never matter to me. You’ve just made sure of that by trapping me again! You’ve chosen my fate on my behalf. You’ve taken away my freedom and my future and you expect me to accept it? No. Just no! You’re as bad as the men who trapped you here. If you know what it’s like to be a prisoner, why are you doing it to me? Why delude yourself into thinking I’ll stay here? Even if you bury me beneath a thousand chains and wrap me in a million padlocks, I’ll never stop searching for a way out. Never! Do you hear me?”

“I’m sorry.” His eyes narrowed, black and merciless. “I truly am. But I’m also not going to let you go.”

“Then you’re not sorry.”

He shrugged. “You’re right. I’m glad.”

“Glad?!”

He had the audacity to half-smile. “I can finally relax. You get what you wanted and have free range of my home. The chain is long enough for you to enter any room you wish on the ground floor. I will feel you as you move. The thread between us will always be there, reminding us that we are not alone. You will never have to step foot in that basement again because I will always be alerted of your presence.”

He leaned forward, eagerness sparking on his wild face. “We’ll work side by side. I’ll show you how to cultivate, how to hunt, how to prepare game, and gather everything else required for the day winter arrives.”

“And if I kill you instead?” I crossed my arms, rage flowing through my veins. “If I murder you in your sleep and hack that belt from your waist, what then?”

“Then...” He rolled his shoulders. “I guess I’ll be dead, and you’ll be free.”

“You don’t sound afraid.”

His chin tipped downward, watching me from brow-shadowed eyes. “Are you listening? Truly listening? This is the part I’ll only say once. I’ve said this before, in fact. I admitted such things in the garden. It hurt then, and it fucking kills now, so pay attention.” Inhaling hard, he said, “You are my greatest enemy, but you are also my only friend. You’ve done things to my heart I never thought possible. You’ve given me back my desire for sex and showed me that, even after everything I’ve endured, I can enjoy pleasure. You’ve made me feel anger and fear, possessiveness and rage. You make me so fucking mad, knowing you’ve learned things about me that you have no right to learn. Your very presence in my home ties me into knots, and I don’t know whether I want to kill you or kiss you most of the time. You, with your damn climbing skills and brazen trespassing, have made me feel again. Live again. And I’m not willing to give that up.”

Pushing to his hands and knees, he crawled toward me across the kitchen floor. His eyes etched with pain from his concussion, his body swaying a little from imbalance. He stalked me as if I was the one already dead, the one whose life hung in his hands for eternity.

He didn’t stop until he kneeled before me and took my jaw in his powerful hand.

I flinched as foreboding and despair made my hair stand on end.

His voice slipped from soft to steely. “I don’t know who you are or why you found me. I don’t know how you made me feel such things or why my thoughts aren’t nearly as black when I’m in your company. I don’t trust you. I don’t know how to figure this shit out. All I know is, I would rather you kill me than live another day without you, so...I’m happy with either option.”

As he ran his thumb over my bottom lip, his eyes caught mine and held. Blazing with truth, with vulnerability, with every dark broken piece of him, he breathed, “That’s how this will end, Gem. The only way. You either accept that it’s just us and learn to give me what I want—to learn to want me in the same way—or you will kill me to be free of me. There is no other path from here. Either way, I get what I need. I get you. For the rest of my godforsaken life.”

Letting me go, he pushed up and stumbled to his feet. Shaking his head from whatever sickness he still felt, he looked down at me.

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t believe what he’d just said.

He was the worst kind of contradiction. The most dangerous of all men.

He’d ensured I was his for evermore, accepting that if my desire for freedom was stronger than my desire to remain his, I would end up killing him.