Fable of Happiness (Fable #2) by Pepper Winters

“Care to explain why you’re back to being an asshole?”

“Do you really need to ask?”

“Yes actually, I do.” My nose went in the air. “You say I don’t respect your boundaries, yet it’s you who doesn’t respect mine. Look at what happened today. You hurt me...again, but I was able to put that behind us. I’ve been nice to you and it’s backfired every single time. I literally just offered to clean your gutters and—”

“And ensured I was highly aware that this, that we, are just temporary in your mind. Whereas for me—” He punched himself over the heart. “You are more permanent than anything.”

“You can’t expect to keep me like a favourite toy, Kassen!”

“And you can’t have this both ways, Gemma.”

“Both ways?” My own temper fired hotter to meet his. “You’re the one who switched the moment you walked inside.”

“No, you’re the one who just admitted you’re still looking for a way out.”

“I said no such thing.”

He laughed coldly. “You said it right to my face.” He lowered his chin, watching me beneath his brow. “I saw it in your eyes. I heard it in your voice. It wasn’t just the words you used but the way you said it. Seems you’re not the only one who can read a person. The more I get to know you, the more secrets you share with me.”

I trembled with fear and fury. “Do you honestly think I will turn my back on my mother, my brother, and not try to leave? You’re naïve if you think I’ll put you before them.”

His fingers dug into the doorframe. “You don’t have a choice.”

“Perhaps not, but by removing my choice, it ensures I’ll never drop my guard around you. Never be anything more than just your prisoner.”

“Did I say I wanted more?”

I sneered, drinking in his face and the agonizing hurt in his stare. He might be learning how to read me, but I’d already become a master at reading him. And his features were carved with frustration. With need. With a hunger that only came from being denied true company. He’d accepted that he no longer wanted to be alone. I’d conveniently fit the role in becoming his valley companion. The only problem was, he hadn’t asked. He’d told, and well, I was stubborn when it came to being told anything.

I crossed my arms and ignored his previous question. “I’m not cooking for you.”

“You’ll do it because you owe me. I fed you each night for a week. It’s your turn.”

Spinning on his heels, he stalked through the door and left me with a dead rabbit, trembling anger, and the awful feeling that he’d won.





CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ONE HOUR.

I’d given her one hour to gut, skin, and cook that fat little rabbit.

I glowered at the paua shell clock in the library, slouching in Storymaker’s throne.

It’d been two hours and still no food.

What the fuck is taking her so long?

If I wasn’t so mad at her, I would’ve gone to check. Maybe I would’ve even helped her, especially with the messy parts. But I literally couldn’t be in the same room with her. Not after I’d witnessed her face slip into defiance, not when her body language shouted far louder than words, letting me know exactly what she thought of me, this arrangement, and the fact that she saw us as temporary instead of permanent.

Was this how she felt when reading me? Did my face give off similar hints that my emotions toward her ranged from rabid desire to fuming loathing? And if she could read me as well as she said she could, why hadn’t she stabbed that knife she’d commandeered into my heart by now? It was obvious she wanted to.

She wants nothing to fucking do with me.

Fury flowed in my veins at the unfairness of it. Couldn’t she see I was trying? I was doing my best to be human. To remember how to be kind and think of someone other than myself. It wasn’t easy after so long. It definitely wasn’t easy after the shit I’d endured.

But I was trying, which was more than I could say for her.

Instead of meeting me halfway, she was searching for that perfect moment of weakness to flee.

My jaw clenched with rage.

While she’d slept on the riverbank, I’d stupidly thought she’d felt the same tug of togetherness I had, and that’s why she hadn’t run. That she could feel—

There’s nothing to feel.

She’s mine to use as I see fit.

Nothing more.

If my screwed-up head had tried to make it into something it wasn’t, then that was the concussion’s fault, not mine.

Yet...

I’d thought we’d made progress today. I’d embraced the softer sensations inside me. I was going to let her take whatever pleasure she wanted from me, for Christ’s sake. Didn’t she know what a big deal that was? How much that would’ve cost me to let her use me after everything?

Instead of accepting my olive branch, she’d pretended things were better, all the while biding her time to run.

Damn girl.

Damn exhausting, infuriating girl.

I sank forward, resting my face in my hands and digging fingers into my hair. My anger switched to dizziness.

A split second of blankness came again. The library wasn’t known, my body wasn’t mine, everything about my world emptied of familiarity.