Fable of Happiness (Fable #2) by Pepper Winters

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.