Fable of Happiness Book Two

by Pepper Winters

  “But you didn’t—”

  “Leave!”

  “But I—”

  “Go.” He grabbed his hair and fisted handfuls of knots. “Fucking go!”

  True fear spiraled again.

  He looked on the verge of snapping.

  Despair shot through me, slapping me with reality that this wasn’t some storybook where the heroine managed to free the monster in one try. This was reality. And the reality was, Kas was severely damaged and far out of my realm of capabilities in which to heal.

  “Go...please go,” he murmured, curling into himself as if he could trap all the wickedness inside him.

  Even though it felt like the hardest thing in the world.

  Even though instincts told me I should argue, fight, and stay...

  I did what he asked.

  And I left.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  GEMMA ASHFORD WAS THE only person to ever successfully break me.

  I’d had so many others try. I’d endured hundreds of punishments and thousands of games, yet I’d always been able to safeguard the inner parts of me. I’d sheltered those pieces for my family. I’d held them tight all while I’d been beaten and used because I knew if I gave up, who would look after them? Who would find a way to kill our masters? Who would sacrifice their own happiness so that one day, those he loved could find theirs?

  But Gemma.

  Christ, Gem.

  She was the first to give me something out of the goodness of her heart. No matter how much it cost her. No matter how much she hated me for what I’d done. She’d read my suffering, understood the jagged complexities of my mind, and she’d been so angelically good.

  She’d glowed in my arms. She’d had wings of gold and a halo of kindness all as she took my corrupted, unclean soul inside hers.

  And how had I repaid her?

  By coating her in the same fucking dirt I’d crawled out of.

  Seeing my cum trickle down her leg? Seeing the bruises I’d given her while doing something unforgivable? Fuck me, it represented every disgusting thing I’d ever done. All the cum that’d covered me, all the guests who’d claimed me, all the games I’d been forced to play.

  She hadn’t deserved to be included in that mess.

  She didn’t deserve to be trapped with a man who couldn’t control his own thoughts or keep her safe from the very same urges he’d ignored for eleven years.

  She wasn’t safe here.

  She wasn’t fucking safe because seeing my release roll down her leg had made me viciously hard again. It wasn’t enough to take her once. I wanted her again and again and again. I wanted her beneath me, on me, in me. I wanted to die with her on my tongue and my body pounding into hers.

  I was sick.

  I was exhausted.

  Living with her had become impossible.

  I found it harder and harder just to survive. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t dangerous and cruel. I couldn’t wipe away the blood still coating my hands, or the nightmares just waiting to manipulate me.

  I’d raped her because I’d stupidly fallen asleep. Fallen asleep because of a concussion that scrambled my thoughts and an exhaustion borne from her presence.

  I never wanted to sleep again.

  What if I woke to her dead beneath me?

  What if I never woke at all, and I kept her trapped here forever, like me. Hurting her, using her, never able to open my eyes and see just how wonderful she was. How giving, generous, and kind.

  I groaned and rested my sweaty forehead on my arms.

  I didn’t think I could do this anymore.

  I couldn’t keep living with someone who was nice. Who forced me to confront all my dark madness.

  And the worst part?

  The worst part was not knowing how she’d react. I’d hurt her. Yet instead of hurting me back, she’d given me something that no one else ever had.

  She’d given me understanding, calmness. Granted access to her body and gifted me a split second of happiness. She did something no one else would ever have done, and I didn’t know how to handle that.

  How was I supposed to keep my walls up, to protect myself from a past that had the power to suffocate me, all while Gemma Ashford broke me into pieces?

  For hours, I sat against the wall, sinking into my misery. My stomach snarled with hunger, and my mind...well, that flickered with its familiar concussion and unreliable memory.

  My eyes dropped to the chain binding her to me; the very same chain that’d clinked softly as she’d left the room on my request. I would never tell her, but my shitty memory had forgotten where I’d put the key. It wasn’t a good thing for someone like me to know she was close by, especially in my current state.

  Just like the key was missing, tiny incidents that made up my life were gone. The blankness came on suddenly with no warning, erasing a few seconds, deleting my attempts at being better.

  It was as if I fought an unwinnable battle.

  I wanted to be good, but how could I when every part of me was bad?

  I wanted to deserve her, but how could I when I’d always be a slave?

  God, I was tired.

  I felt wrung out and wrong, and something gnawed at me that couldn’t be ignored.

  For all my shame of what I’d done to Gemma, she’d never once looked at me as if she cursed me. She’d shown incredible strength and sweetness.

  She was so different, so pure, so right.

  She was dirty because of me.

  She was hurt because of what I’d done.

  And I couldn’t sit there another goddamn moment without doing something to fix what I’d soiled.

  Hauling myself from the floor, I stumbled a little as I bent for my jeans and stepped into them. My head rushed as I zipped them into place and rearranged the chain under my T-shirt.

  Gritting my teeth against my constant headache, I stalked from the library.

  I needed to find her.

  To apologize.

  To wash her clean from my filth.

  To be honest and tell her that no one had ever treated me the way she did, and it messed with my defective mind.

  I was...falling.

  Falling in ways that fucking terrified me.

  You sent her away after she gave you a gift.

  I slammed to a stop in the foyer.

  I winced as my head pounded.

  I couldn’t go to her empty-handed.

  She deserved the world.

  She deserved her freedom.

  Both of those things I couldn’t give.

  The only thing I could afford to offer was her safety. Safety that came with a time limit and only applied while my eyes were open and nightmares stayed far away.

  For as long as I could stay awake tonight, I was hers humbly and completely.

  Changing direction, I headed toward the kitchen and the door toward the garden. The chain around my waist was long enough to step outside into the moonlight despite catching on furniture and tracking through the house. I walked toward the ancient claw-foot iron bathtub that I’d painstakingly dragged from one of the downstairs bathrooms a few years ago.

  I’d remodeled that bathroom from the lighting to the fixtures. And by remodeled, I meant smashed to smithereens and left to rot.

  In truth, I’d had a night of utter desolation and couldn’t stomach the sameness, the stagnantly empty silence any longer. I’d taken an ax to the tiles and a hammer to the sink and only stopped myself from destroying the bath because of a stupid idea from a book I’d read that week.

  The characters in the book had found satisfaction by soaking in hot water beneath the stars. They’d laughed and unwound, fucked and fell in love.

  And I’d been beyond myself with jealousy.

  It’d taken a full day to drag the heavy bathtub through Fables, into the garden, and find a way to dig a hearth and stack wood beneath its belly.

  That first night, when I’d laid in hot water and pruned my skin for hours, was the first night I’d s
lept without a nightmare. No sleepwalking. No panic attacks. Just blissful, blank rest.

  After that, an outdoor soak had become a drug to me, especially in winter when snow fell, and I ambled from room to room with my breath creating clouds before me. Stoking a fire and slipping into a hot bath was sometimes the only true warmth I found all winter.

  It was my favorite thing to do at night—the only way I could relax in this valley after darkness had fallen.

  And I wanted to share it with her.

  I wanted to give her a piece of myself, just as she’d given me something of her.

  I need her to know she’s safe, even after what I did.

  Marching toward last year’s depleted firewood pile, I stacked kindling and sticks, and prepared to apologize to the girl who’d crippled me.

  * * * * *

  I found her in the conservatory.

  Curled up beneath silver blankets that she’d raided from a guest room. Why she insisted on sleeping in a glass box was beyond me. Sure, it was fine at the moment with the nights still warm and days still sunny but come winter, she’d freeze.

  Winter...

  My heart suddenly stopped.

  Unlike all the other times I’d thought about the change of seasons and how much preparation I still had to do, I was struck with the absolute glorious knowledge that I wouldn’t be alone.

  She’ll be here.

  The reality of that sucker punched me. I tripped to the side as my eyes stayed locked on Gemma in her nest of bedding. It hadn’t hit me before. I hadn’t stopped to truly understand that I wouldn’t have to hibernate in an empty house with nothing and no one.

  Thanks to her, I’d have company on those eternally boring days. I’d have someone to talk to, someone to touch and kiss and—

  You should let her go.

  I froze as moonlight danced behind clouds and shone through the glass roof, casting everything in quicksilver.

  After what she’d done for me tonight—after what I’d done—the only way to truly show her how much she meant to me was to let her go. To find the key and unlock the chain and willingly walk her to the cliff to say goodbye.

  Shit.

  My heart spasmed painfully. I raised a hand and massaged my chest, gasping at the agony of even contemplating watching her climb out of my valley.

  It’s the right thing to do.

  The only thing.

  The only way to keep her safe.

  Gritting my teeth, I did my best to stay quiet as Gemma slept. She’d been so selfless in her kindness tonight. She’d given me more than just her body...she’d given me something intangible, something far, far too fragile and priceless not to deserve the biggest reward in return.

  Therefore, I should have the same strength to free her, right? So what did that say about me that I couldn’t?

  That I physically wouldn’t be able to survive if she left. Dramatic? Probably. The truth? Absolutely.

  She can’t leave.

  Even knowing what I did of my unraveling mind and tendencies of harming her. Her imprisonment was for life, purely because my reasoning for trapping her kept evolving: from physical needs and believing I could take from her whenever I damn well wanted to now acknowledging that I’d started to feel. Started to fall. Started to slip and slide, dive and drown each and every moment I was with her.

  Rubbing my throbbing heart, I glared at the chain binding us as it glittered in the moonlight. Even if I physically could release her, I’d lost the key.

  It was a poor excuse, but my damaged mind latched onto it with claws.

  I couldn’t free her because I had no way of doing so. Therefore, keeping her was understandable, logical...necessary.

  Accepting my sins, I ducked beside her and reached for her shoulder. My shadow fell over her. A sinister shape looming over an innocent, beautiful girl.

  I shivered in fear. Fear of myself. Fear of my mind, my intentions, my past.

  I hesitated, hovering my fingers over her delicate body.

  I should let her rest. I should leave.

  I should stay the hell away so I don’t—

  “Kas?” Her eyes flew wide, locking onto my hand inches away from touching her.

  I snatched it back, rocking on the balls of my feet as a crush of imbalance made me wobble.

  Sitting upright, the silver blankets fell from her body, revealing she’d slept in the same shirt she’d worn all day. The same one she’d unbuttoned in the river when I’d dragged her in behind me. The same one she’d pilfered and wore so elegantly as she’d brandished a knife in my face—was it just this morning?—before dropping it by my feet in the conservatory.

  My memory flickered, delivering a partial recollection.

  “The moment I kiss you back, Kassen Sands, you’ll be at my mercy, not the other way around. Take me against my will, and I won’t just take your body in return. I will take your heart. I will unearth all the love that you’ve suppressed so, so deep inside you, and I will make you curse the very day you decided to trap me. Take me against my will, and I will show you what heartbreak can do to a man like you.”

  I gasped, swooping to my feet with a grunt.

  Fuck, was that what’d happened?

  I’d taken her against her will. I’d hurt her—made her fight with fear and tears. Yet she’d somehow had the strength to touch me afterward. To forgive me. She’d ridden me as if she felt something for me. She’d let me come inside her. She’d kissed my cheek and sent lightning bolts through my blood.

  That lightning had struck my heart.

  It was still smoking, still charred, and entirely lost because of what she’d made me feel.

  But...how true was it?

  Was this her plan all along?

  Was this the path she’d warned me about? That she’d not slept with me out of kindness but manipulation? That she fully intended to rip out the very same heart she’d woken up inside me and prove, once and for all, that monsters did bleed. That they could cry. That they could die from wretched heartbreak.

  No.

  I tripped backward.

  She stood, her bare legs flashing with moonlight as she came toward me. Her hands came up as if to catch me. Her eyes glowed with the same sympathy and softness that’d completely annihilated me in the library. “Are you okay? You look like you’re about to be sick.”

  I shook my head, too fast, too fierce, sending plants and moonlight swirling. “I-I’m fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.”

  “I’m fine,” I growled, gagging on more than just the thought of her leaving but the thought of her still hating me. Worse than hating me—being such a mastermind and flawless actress that she could hide her true feelings and be gentle.

  To give me the one thing I’d never had. The one thing I was fucking desperate for. The one thing I would happily die for.

  Could she do that?

  Could she be worse than all the guests combined? Could she carry off a performance of kindness and affection, coaxing me under her spell, all while driving the very same knife she’d thrown at me feet into my back?

  Christ, I—

  That would make her crueler than Storymaker, Levin, Willby...it would make her more diabolical than all of them put together because not one of them had been able to mask their true desires, their real natures.

  But Gemma?

  She could be my greatest enemy, all while she made me fall in love with her.

  Ah, fuck.

  She was right.

  I was going to be sick.

  I spun and stumbled for the wall. Slamming both hands on the glass, I sucked in a tainted breath, wincing against the pain in my broken arm. Air was tainted because she was there. Her scent. Her beauty. Her very fucking presence.

  And then, her hand rubbed softly between my shoulder blades, and her voice lowered to a coo that I’d never, not once, been privileged to hear. “It’s okay. If you’re still upset about what you did...don’t. It’s in the past.” She paused before murmuring,
“It’s two a.m., Kas. That was yesterday. Today is fresh. We can start anew.”

  I groaned from the sheer pain of her comfort. Did she know her empathy was the worst weapon against me? Did she understand my bones crumbled to dust and my blood turned to mud and I couldn’t fucking think straight all because of her benevolence?

  But it could be faked.

  She could be playing you for a fool—

  I snapped upright.

  My nausea vanished.

  So what?

  So what if she did? So what if I stumbled right into her game?

  At least, I could find some smidgen of happiness along the way. I could enjoy a few soft touches, a couple of calm moments from the shitstorm of my mind.

  I suddenly didn’t care.

  So what if it was all a sham? So what if this was her delivering the worst agony of my life? By the time she twisted the knife in so deep I finally figured out her intention, it would be too late.

  It was already too late.

  Turning slowly, I caught her wrist as her hand fell away from my back. Not looking up, I focused on her elegant fingers as I twined them with mine. I did something as innocent as hold her hand, yet it gave me a deeper satisfaction than driving hard inside her.

  She gasped as I brought her knuckles to my lips and kissed the delicate skin covering them. She shivered as I grazed my mouth over each, worshiping, memorizing, angling her hand until her fingers went taut.

  I slowly inserted her middle one into my mouth.

  “Oh,” she breathed.

  She surprised both of us by almost collapsing to her knees.

  I lashed out with my broken arm, catching her before she tumbled. My teeth caught on her fingernail before sucking it back onto my tongue. I flinched against the throbbing in my injured arm.

  She cried out as I clutched her close, trembling as her perfect body pressed against mine. But that wasn’t right. She wasn’t perfect. She was skinnier than when she’d first arrived.

  Because of me.

  Because I’d not given her the nutrition she needed—both physical and emotional. I’d failed her all while she’d been kind enough to forgive me.

  If this was the woman who would eventually make me pay for all my sins, I would gladly bow at her feet. I would idolize her until the day she destroyed me.