Fable of Happiness Book Two

by Pepper Winters

  “Undress,” I barked.

  She bared her teeth. “No.”

  “Fine.” I was in too much pain for another argument. Heading straight to the river, I waded in and exhaled heavily. God, it’d been too long since my last swim. The water never failed to calm me, clean me, and give me a sense of clarity from the tar inside my mind.

  “Hey, wait!” She scrambled along the shore, hopping toward the edge as I waded deeper, the chain pulling her with me.

  “You’re the one who wanted to stay fully dressed.” I ducked under, letting the world go quiet as water lapped around me. It blocked the buzzing in my ears, and it ran through my dirty hair. It fondled my cock, mimicking Gemma’s wetness without the heat.

  A splash sounded beside me, the ripples of displacement rocking me beneath the surface. I kicked off the bottom and popped back up, blinking away droplets as my gaze latched onto a drowned girl.

  A hazel-eyed, golden-haired, entirely vexing and insanely beautiful girl.

  “You bastard.” She splashed and shoved hair from her face, her beigey shirt billowing around her. “You could’ve said something.”

  “I told you to undress.”

  “I thought you wanted—”

  “I want to fix the hydro generator.” I arched my chin at the large manmade structure in the middle of the rapids. A concrete box that’d been built by whoever Storymaker had enlisted to create Fables. “It ferries the current through smaller channels, pouring over a turbine that constantly turns, generating friction which causes electricity.”

  She glowered. “God, you annoy me. All of you. Every single piece of you drives me up the wall. Just so we’re clear.” She huffed, her fingers flying to the delicate buttons of her shirt. She undid one, then two, then three.

  My mouth suddenly went very, very dry.

  I couldn’t look away, not even if an asteroid chose that moment to smash us into dust. I would be happy dust. Dust with a hard-on for the stunning, infuriating girl currently tugging off her soaking wet shirt, leaving her in a tight teal sports bra.

  Her eyes glowed with green and shadow as she threw the wet shirt toward the shore, deliberately slapping it onto my dry clothes.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Witch.”

  “You deserved it.” With a quick inhale, she ducked beneath the surface. Her hair continued to float on the surface as her curves beneath the waterline twisted and contorted, yanking off soaking boots and pulling her skirt over her head.

  I shuddered as a wave of debilitating lust shot down my legs.

  My hand strayed to my thigh. My cock pulsed for touch. It would be so, so easy to come. A single stroke. One delicious pump.

  “Stuart!” Ms. Blain yelled. “Get in here.”

  The door opened, depositing Storymaker directly into my current nightmare. I was bound and cuffed to a wooden cross. Ankles spread, arms wide, my neck chained in place so I couldn’t move. I was merely a thing to be ridden. To be taken against my wishes. To be molested however Ms. Blain decided.

  This was her favorite game. To tie me up and torment me for hours. The awful thing was, she wasn’t even supposed to be my guest. I’d begged to be her plaything the night Zanik couldn’t stop vomiting in fear when he saw her name on the registration book. He was normally stoic and quiet. The one who helped me keep the others calm. But seeing him like that? Watching him flinch each time the door opened and Storymaker summoned a new Fable slave to serve, broke my damn heart.

  So, I’d gone to her on my own. I’d knocked on her door. I’d strode past her when she opened, and I let her use me in every way she wanted.

  I had no one else to blame for the blood running down my chest or the fact that I’d pissed myself when she’d shoved a dildo up my ass after ten hours of keeping me bound.

  My bladder had given up. And with the release of pressure from needing to piss, my cock had turned soft.

  In punishment, she’d shoved the phallus so deep inside me, I was sure I’d rip in two. If she was trying to get me back in the mood, bleeding out of my ass ensured I’d never get hard again.

  “What? What is it, Annette?” Storymaker frowned, looking at me in my naked, piss-covered glory as if I was nothing more interesting than a boring book on a nightstand.

  “He’s gone soft, and no matter what I do, he won’t get hard again.” She leaned into him, whispering loudly. “I gave him a Viagra a few hours ago. Aren’t those things supposed to last all night?”

  Storymaker strolled in, eyeing up my flaccid cock with disgust. “Unfortunately, those wonder pills don’t seem to work as well on Kassen as the others, do they, boy?” He tapped my cheek, ending with a harsh slap.

  My head shot sideways, sticking to the wood of the cross. I didn’t care. I was past caring.

  “Unbuckle his right hand.” Storymaker spun to face Ms. Blain by the door. “Make him jerk off. Mr. Wilby showed him how to arouse himself.” Turning back to me, he grinned. “He knows the consequences of not being able to serve a guest in all ways they require, don’t you, Kassen?”

  He grabbed my chin, jerking my face to him. I hoped he didn’t see the tracks of my tears or hear the brutal pain howling in my chest. “You’ll masturbate good and proper. Get that thing stiff. Annette here hasn’t finished her fun, and you know how important it is to keep our guests entertained.”

  My right wrist was released, my shoulder flaring in agony.

  Storymaker snatched my hand and shoved it between my legs, forcing fingers to wrap around my abused cock, squishing the softness until fresh tears sprang to my eyes. “Fuck yourself, Kassen. There’s a good boy. Don’t disappoint me. You know what will happen if you do.”

  “Kas! Kas!” Hands on my chest, fingers in my hair, a warm curvy body against mine. “You’re okay. It’s just in your head. You’re here, with me. Not there. They can’t touch you—”

  Touch?

  Fuck, no.

  Not again.

  Never again.

  I grabbed the person who dared to touch me. I latched around their throat.

  I squeezed.

  Nails sliced across my face as a reedy scream sounded. “It’s me. It’s Gemma! Stop—”

  A choking sound. Legs kicking against mine. Cool water lapping around my body.

  That name.

  It wasn’t a guest’s name.

  Something about it tugged me, called to me, whispered that it was the most important name in the world.

  “Sto...p.” The kicking grew softer. Their fight fading...

  Gemma!

  My eyes shot wide.

  It took a split second for everything to pour through me. Her arrival, her imprisonment, her kissing me, wanting me, talking to me. Her kindness, and her perfect, perfect heart.

  “Fuck!” I ripped my hands off her.

  She slipped under the water.

  I snatched her back, wading to the shore, oblivious that my broken arm blared with fresh agony or that my legs struggled to stay upright with the vertigo in my mind and the river pushing with its currents.

  All I focused on was getting Gemma, getting my friend, to safety.

  It took all my strength to climb from the weightlessness of the water and back onto dry land, hoisting her body until she lay like a dead bride in my arms. “Come on. You’re okay. Open your eyes. Please, for God’s sake, open your eyes.” I kneeled next to my clothes, laying her gently in the grass, placing my hands over her heart to do CPR.

  I pressed my mouth to hers, exhaling hard into her lungs, bracing with power to compress her chest.

  She coughed.

  She convulsed upright.

  I helped turn her onto her side as she spewed up river water. Nasty red marks lined her throat, yet another collar of goddamn bruises left behind by my fingers. Spluttering, she pushed me away, her hands shaking and lips blue from shock.

  It went against every instinct, but I let her go. I moved back. I gave her space.

  Slowly, her coughing subsided, giving her enough strength to sit up
and wrap her arms around her knees. She did her best to hide between her legs, revealing her lower body was naked, her skirt and boots still somewhere in the river. I supposed, just like she couldn’t wear leggings with the cuff, she couldn’t put underwear on either.

  I didn’t know why that killed me, but it did.

  Such a simple piece of fabric protection. Yet another piece of her modesty and sanity that I’d stolen.

  Fuck.

  I ran a hand through my dripping hair, crushed beneath the ever-growing boulder in my heart. I hadn’t seen her this bare since that night in the storm. I wanted to see more. I hated that it made me both sick with desire and distraught with regret.

  She had bruises down her arms from whatever tasks she’d completed while nursing me back to health. She had scrapes on her legs and shadows on her chest from things she wouldn’t share with me, yet the worst thing? Her body was different from when she first found my valley, and I stole her.

  The power that’d attracted me to her. The raw strength in honed muscles she’d crafted from years of discipline and climbing had faded.

  She’d lost weight.

  Lost enough to see the outline of her ribs as she heaved for breath and watched me with terrified eyes. Enough to turn her already flat stomach concave as she hugged herself and fought the urge to rock with panic.

  Yet another mark I’d put on her. Another flaw of her captivity. I’d laid my hands on her and caused her pain, yet even on the days I kept my distance, I caused her untold misery.

  I wasn’t feeding her enough. I wasn’t giving her the sustenance she needed to survive.

  I was used to living on nothing. My body was lean and capable of existing on the low end of nutritional requirements. Hers, on the other hand, wasn’t used to such poverty.

  Our eyes caught, and my heart squeezed into a bleeding pile of excrement.

  I wanted to say sorry.

  I wanted to explain it wasn’t her who I’d tried to hurt. It wasn’t her fault. It was mine. Entirely, insanely mine. I should tell her that my mind was broken. That she should stay away from the loner in the valley who suspected he had schizophrenia on top of a whole mansion worth of issues.

  But...my throat closed up.

  I couldn’t be there anymore.

  I couldn’t witness the betrayal in her stare.

  With a grunt, I climbed to my feet, grabbed the key from my jeans pocket, undid the chain between us, and dove into the river.

  I couldn’t fix her or myself.

  But I could fix that fucking generator, even if it was the last thing I’d ever do.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  HE UNDID IT.

  I blinked at the splash where Kas had vanished underwater, my gaze flicking back and forth between the river and my ankle. The chain curled from my leg, still padlocked to me but not to him. The links were weighty and solid, but they coiled to nowhere...

  How?

  He’d said he’d never unlock us, ever.

  So what...what the hell happened?

  I touched my painful throat with shaking hands.

  One second, he’d been explaining the hydro thing, and the next, he’d gone stone cold and white. Absolutely ghostly white with eyes wide, seeing something I couldn’t. I’d popped back up from being underwater and tried to get his attention with a soft tap on his shoulder, but he’d merely hunched into himself.

  I’d deliberated leaving him to sort through whatever memories had attacked—after all, it was all the suppressing he’d done that caused such misery—but then he’d groaned exactly like a haunted, hunted animal, and I couldn’t leave him to his mind’s mercy. I couldn’t stand there and not do my best to snap him out of it.

  It turned out, that’d been the wrong decision.

  Swallowing, I winced as familiar soreness throbbed around my throat. At this point, I’d almost lost track of how many times he’d strangled me. I was past berating myself or feeling furious or even guilty for being silly enough to keep letting it happen.

  This time, he hadn’t been strangling me. I’d known that. Anyone would’ve been able to see that if they looked into his hollow, hurting eyes.

  What did he see?

  What the hell has he lived through?

  Kas popped up by the rapids, climbing from the deeper pool and wading through the shallower parts to the concrete structure in the middle of babbling white water. His naked back glittered with droplets as well as scars, complete with the leather belt that once bound us together. His long hair lay plastered over his shoulders, looking as if he’d just appeared from the jungle for a swim while his bare legs looked almost part of the river as he climbed over rocks and grew closer to his task. He wasn’t self-conscious as his cock bobbed between his thighs. He didn’t glance back at me to ensure I hadn’t run away. He acted as if he couldn’t stand to face me and hurled himself into distraction.

  I bit my lip as he slipped on an algae-coated rock, falling to one knee. With his head bowed and both hands digging in the water up to his elbows, he looked as if he prayed to a river god.

  He still wasn’t well. Doing this would tax him of whatever energy he’d been able to gain back. He’d brought me here to help, yet...I couldn’t seem to move.

  Something called to me.

  Something that had once been so strong I’d cried myself to sleep with longing, now whispered on the breeze.

  Home.

  I shivered as I turned and looked at the cliff surrounding us. The crisscross tree branch canopy shivered in the light wind, dropping the occasional orange and brown, crinkly and dead leaf.

  The urge to run whispered louder.

  Light-headedness from being strangled answered back.

  Half of me swayed toward the rock face, gathering up strength to climb while the other half of me already knew how that story would go.

  I would leave.

  Kas would follow.

  I would climb.

  Kas would probably fall.

  And I’d return because...

  Why?

  Because you’re worried about him? Because you care about him?

  I winced.

  I’d return because I was sick of going around in circles. Sick of fighting and arguing and going against all the nurturing and understanding parts of my nature.

  This man was not at all well. Not just because of his concussion but something deeper than that. A rot had begun in his soul, and I didn’t know how much longer he had left. I cared because I cared about all life. It didn’t mean I wanted him for my own or had any delusions of why we were so drawn to one another.

  After the last week of chained captivity and wallowing in my anger, I could never go back to that. He’d very successfully ensured that no matter how long I remained here, no matter what happened in the course of surviving together, I would never be stupid enough to fall in love. Whatever emotion I’d felt for him was no longer relevant—not because of strict pep talks in the dead of night, but because it just wasn’t possible to love something so damaged.

  I could help, sure.

  I could forgive, possibly.

  But trust? Adore? Have faith that he was whole enough to love me back? To even understand the meaning of love?

  That was where I had to draw the line.

  After what he’d endured, I couldn’t blame him that pieces of himself were missing. I could understand that. I could respect that. But expecting a miracle where he suddenly grew a heart and let me go and actually willingly came with me back into society where help could possibly heal him...well, I no longer believed in fairy tales.

  I’m too tired...

  Tearing my eyes off Kas as he vanished into the large concrete box, ducking down to fiddle with whatever machinery made electricity from water, I chose a different story. I would not run today, but I would not help him either.

  He’d hurt me.

  And frankly, right now, I had nothing to give him.

  Today, you’re on your own, Kassen Sands.

  I was
justified to rest...just a little while.

  Exhaling heavily, wincing at the pain in my throat, I lay down on my back. I flinched for the numerous time at not having underwear on. My exercise bra seemed superfluous without panties protecting me. Since that first day Kas snapped the chain on me, I’d had to cut off my panties and couldn’t figure out how to get a new pair on that didn’t involve undoing the padlock.

  I shouldn’t have taken off my skirt.

  But it’d been clinging to my legs, making it hard to swim. I’d thought we’d stay submerged, complete the chore he’d chosen, and I’d put the material back on as we waded back to shore. I hadn’t expected him to strangle me and carry me out unconscious.

  Does it matter?

  He’d seen me.

  He’d made it abundantly clear I wasn’t allowed to say no to him.

  What difference did it make if I was nude or covered? He’d take me regardless.

  My tiredness shoved away embarrassment and vulnerability.

  In fact, it regressed me to animalistic roots, and I swooped up, yanked off my soaked bra, and tossed it away, leaving me sublimely bare to the hot sun.

  I didn’t care anymore.

  I just wanted to rest.

  As I lay back, the long grass cradled me, forming around my body as if creating a natural hammock. The ground was warm and the sun beamed down, painting my nakedness with yellowy rays and shadowy crosses from the tree branch ceiling.

  A splash came from the river, but I ignored it.

  I gave myself this moment.

  A single moment where I turned everything off.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d relaxed. Truly, completely relaxed.

  It’d been too long. Way, way too long.

  I didn’t know why I was suddenly able to switch off in his company after a week of living in constant awareness. A week where my skin prickled whenever he was close, and my instincts were hyper-sensitive to his every sound.

  Perhaps it was his hands yet again around my throat, or maybe it was the fact he’d let me go and hadn’t checked to see if he needed to kill me to make me stay. Or maybe it was just because I’d reached my limit of being afraid, and this was now my new normal.

  Either way, I only got to enjoy the sun’s golden rays for a few minutes before sleep crept over me, inching with its foggy fingers and pulling a velvet curtain over my mind. It soothed. It comforted. It erased the bruises around my neck, the bruises around my heart, sucking me deep, deep down into healing darkness.