Fable of Happiness (Fable #2) by Pepper Winters

He needed to heal, and I needed time to let my rage fade.

The only thing was, he seemed to be healing, but my rage didn’t seem to be fading.

The color in his cheeks showed he’d been outside yesterday. He hadn’t been doing any gardening or other labor—I would’ve felt the tension on the chain if we strayed too far apart—but I did think his headaches were getting more manageable. At least enough for him to become fixated on harvesting and bunkering down for a winter I couldn’t fathom.

It was still scorching outside.

Sure, the grass had gone dry after being drenched from the storm a few weeks ago, and the vegetables looked unhappy with wilting leaves and paling colors. And if I dared to look past the glittering blue of the river up the cliff face to the trees with their crisscross ceiling of branches, I’d confess green now interspersed with orange and brown.

Autumn was only a few days away.

Unfortunately, the russet colors and bracken-breezes seemed to have triggered an even deeper urgency in the feral man I lived with. Each time he’d left a meal for me, consisting of whatever vegetable he’d deemed worthy of eating that night, the aura of the house was famine. The two nights he’d actually provided a few strips of smoked meat had felt as if he was sharing something vitally precious with someone he couldn’t stand.

When we’d bump into each other in the foyer or skirted around each other as we drifted from room to silent room, I hadn’t let myself see just how much his stare lingered after me. How he’d pause and almost seemed as if he wanted to talk to me. To begin a conversation, to cast aside our animosity, to find a way to bridge what he’d destroyed.

I hadn’t permitted that.

I hadn’t granted a single word since our argument. For all intents, I’d been lazy. I hadn’t lifted a finger to clean, care, or cook. I definitely hadn’t bothered cooking.

I dare not go back outside and select anything from his veggie patch. Hell no. I’d learned that lesson, thank you very much. Occasionally, I’d help myself to a chocolate bar and finished the muesli bar stash in my bag (stupidly eating my rations if I ever did manage to escape), but I was under no illusions that was the extent of my diet if he hadn’t chosen to share.

Not that I’d expected Kas to feed me. Not after his explosiveness the other day, so the fact that, without fail, he always left a plate of something for me, tangled even further with my complicated emotions.

I wanted to hate him so, so badly.

And I do.

But...in other ways, I didn’t. I still remembered the man who’d hugged me as if he couldn’t breathe without me in his arms. I dreamed of the sweetest kiss he’d given. I daydreamed of the boy who’d asked me out.

If I could just get him to let down his many, many walls, perhaps I could appeal to the other elements inside him. The pieces of him that weren’t so badly abused that they’d rather attack than compromise.

Even if you did succeed, he’ll still keep you here.

Things had gone too far to let me just walk away now.

I sighed, feeling twice my age.

“I told you the silent treatment won’t sit well with me,” he murmured, eyeing up my notepad, his gaze dark and full of annoyance. We were closer than we’d been since he’d chained me in the kitchen. The sun shone through the skylight dotted with wildflowers above, highlighting the silvery scars over his forearms and the turbulent shadows darkening his gaze.

What caused those scars, those shadows?

Who could be so cruel?

“Say something.” He arched an eyebrow. “I’m sure you have plenty to say after seven days.”

“Nothing that you haven’t heard before.”

“I’m happy for you to repeat it. My memory has been playing tricks on me lately.”

“No more so than usual, I’m sure. And pity for you, I’m not in the repeating mood.” I scribbled another line of gibberish, keeping the paper angled away from him so he couldn’t tell his presence rattled me.

Awkward quietness fell between us. It had nails, slowly dragging silence down a chalkboard and making my hair stand on end.

“What are you writing that’s more important than me?” He sniffed, ripping the notebook from my grasp.

“Hey!”

“Ribbons led me here, a chain kept me here, but betrayals will set me free.” His forehead furrowed, scanning my nonsense sentence. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means, none of your business.” I snatched it back, shoving it beneath me and the cushion.

He shifted away and rubbed his broken arm, still with the splint I’d fashioned for him. His profile revealed he bit back his temper. Like me, he physically trapped words behind his teeth and forced them down his throat.

I fully expected him to stand and leave. My heart raced, just waiting for him to give me back my peace.

Sitting forward, he clasped his hands together. The rustle of denim on leather was such a masculine sound. His long hair and etched muscles could’ve painted him as a bad boy with a motorbike. Throw a patched jacket on him and a cigarette between his lips and he would’ve been the quintessential poster boy for all terrible decisions and reckless choices.

I couldn’t stand that even now—even with my blazing anger protecting me from whatever mind games he’d play next, I still found him unbelievably attractive. Rugged and untamed and entirely unpredictable.