Fable of Happiness (Fable #2) by Pepper Winters

But Kas...he’d offered because he viewed himself as beneath me. He’d captured me and treated me like he’d been treated, proving that those traumatized and twisted had every capacity to repeat the vicious circle. So how was he...changing? How had he morphed from someone who commanded I kneel and suck him to a man desperately hoping I’d agree to let him wash my hair?

Oh, Kas, what the hell are you doing to me?

“Gemma, I...” He sighed. “I give you my vow; I won’t hurt you. I don’t have any way of proving that vow, and I understand if you don’t believe me, but...” He swallowed and added almost shyly. “I care for you, so please...let me try to show you.”

I hugged myself as my heart grew so big it crushed against my ribs. His openness and honesty made dangerous things bubble inside me. All those questions I’d swallowed, all those subjects I daren’t chase, clambered for freedom.

Could I ask?

Would he answer?

“On one condition,” I whispered.

He flinched but nodded. “What’s the condition?”

I paused, gathering up more courage from the stars twinkling in the dark. “That you talk to me.”

“Talk?” He frowned.

“That you tell me about...” I pushed toward him, settling with my back in front of him. “Your family. Why you’re alone. What they did to you. Why you never left.”

I felt him tense behind me, but I didn’t look back. This was his choice. He had to know how poignant this moment was. If he chose to give me those pieces of himself, then...we would never go back to what we’d been.

We’d be friends.

We’d be more.

There’s no going back, Kas.

If you speak to me, I won’t stand a chance against you.

Give me your past, and that’s it. You’ll have a champion in me forever. You’ll never be alone. You’ll be loved and—

“Okay,” he breathed, almost choking on the word. “I’ll try.”





CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

I’D AGREED TO DO something I didn’t know if I had the strength to deliver.

Terror siphoned through me. I didn’t want to hear her first question. I needed time. I needed distance and space, and why the fuck was the night suddenly burning up with connection? Why couldn’t I breathe without her scent flowing into my lungs? Why couldn’t I look at her without my entire body hardening?

It took fucking everything not to give in to the screaming in my heart and take her.

She’s mine.

I wanted so fucking much to believe that, to deserve that.

But if I told her what I was, what I’d done, it would be over.

Panic made my thoughts scramble.

I was right when I’d believed I was schizophrenic.

I was even more sure now.

That was why my mind sought emptiness in brief flashes. Why one moment, I wanted to be vulnerable and open with her, and the next, I wanted to shove her away from me and keep her tied up in the dark.

I couldn’t cope, and all these steps toward boundaries I wasn’t brave enough to cross were pushing me into sporadic forgetfulness.

Fuck, I was weak.

I didn’t want to have such splits in my psyche. I didn’t want to be black and monstrous, craving her cries as they somehow healed mine, all while drowning beneath shyness and curiosity, wanting so fucking much to know her.

To answer her questions and ask so many of my own. To actually want to remember what she told me and imagine a world outside of this valley.

I’d trapped her body, but I hadn’t been allowed access to her mind. And I wanted to. Christ, how I wanted to.

Fear made me snappish, and I placed a none-too-gentle hand on the crown of her head, pushing a little too hard. “Duck under. Get wet.”

She shivered. Her skin reacted with goosebumps. Clear evidence she was as aroused as me—or was it fear? Would she be wet if I dipped my hand between her legs? Did she know how throbbingly hard I was while kneeling behind her?

Maybe it wasn’t just me suffocating in this strange and scary night.

Suffering seemed inevitable at this point. Whenever we were close, we reacted. It didn’t matter if we were fighting or ignoring one another; our bodies didn’t seem to care about our words or worries.

Mine definitely didn’t. All it cared about was Gemma was created from the same molecules as me. Our blood was destined. Our bones were fated. That bond had happened against my control. It’d happened the very fucking moment I’d met her.

It was just the other shit I kept ruining that kept us apart.

She allowed me to push her underwater, drenching her hair and giving me time to choke on an exhale without her hearing how scared I was.

My mind relived our kiss from before.

How I’d slipped my tongue into her mouth and almost collapsed at her feet. I’d kissed countless guests in countless areas, yet I’d never been completely undone by anyone else. She didn’t taste like anything on earth. She was rich and sweet and good. Her kindness had a flavor. Her sweetness had a scent. Everything about her drowned my senses, and I wanted her.

Goddammit, I wanted her.

Don’t drown her then, you fool.

Ripping my hand away from her head, she shot back to the surface, wiping her face free from sheeting water.

Her presence, her trust—it all punched me right in the chest.