You’re an idiot, Gem.
A total star at bad decisions.
All that stupid hope and all those stupid plans had blown up spectacularly in my face as he’d hauled me from a perfectly adequate bedroom to a mildew-rotten basement.
I had no more friendly attempts. No more hope that I could appeal to him.
He’d proven he wasn’t normal.
He was dangerous in his unpredictability. Cruel in his brokenness.
And I wasn’t playing this game anymore.
I will get free.
I’ll kill him if I have to.
Making eye contact, he stopped before me and dropped to the floor. Sitting cross-legged didn’t fit his physique or his tight slacks. The abused material strained over his thighs, the stitching pulling apart between his legs. I tried to look away. To refuse the plate as he slid it across the floor to me. I didn’t want to watch him with fascination as well as fear.
His shirt was once again the beige affair with stains and buttons missing. His cuffs were gone, and a hole had begun against his rib cage where his chest burst the threads. He’d somehow taken expensive clothing and turned them into rags. His scruffy jaw and unruly hair down to his shoulders completed the portrayal. The only thing about him that didn’t scream destitution and loneliness were his eyes.
Nondescript in color, they were dark enough to blend with his pupils, leaving his stare almost supernatural. They gleamed with obsidian thoughts, coal-black with opinions, ice-cold with secrets.
“Eat.” He cocked his chin at the plate.
I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall. “If I eat, I’ll need a bathroom again.” I gave him a nasty smile. “Cause and effect and all.”
“And I told you, you already have a bathroom.” Looking over his shoulder, he glanced at the bucket. “You’ll become accustomed to it soon enough.”
“But that’s the thing.” I bared my teeth. “I don’t want to become accustomed. No person should. I’m a person, not an animal. I’m a girl—”
“You don’t have to remind me what you are.” His dark gaze cast over me from head to toe. “I’m fully aware of your sex and species.”
“Then why won’t you treat me as one?”
A sudden cold laugh fell from his lips. “You think being human automatically grants you shelter, food, and comfort?”
“Don’t forget safety.” I sniffed. “Safety from illness, pain...injury.”
He smiled just as evil as his laugh. “Safety is not a right, girl. Safety is an illusion.”
“Safety is what you promised me if I did what you asked.”
His mouth bracketed with anger, grooving his skin and highlighting his scruff. “And you haven’t done what I asked.” His brows dipped, shadowing his gaze even more. “At least, not today.”
My stomach flipped.
Bastard.
“And I won’t do what you ask until you move me to a better prison.” I shivered against my will but added a cough with sly intentions. “I’m getting sick. I’ll die of pneumonia down here.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Eat your food.”
“No.”
“You’ll do what I command. And after, once your rumbling belly is full...I’ll think of something else you can do.” His gaze once again lingered on my breasts.
My traitorous nipples pebbled beneath my borrowed clothes.
Instinct told me to look away, to barricade myself from his thinly veiled threat, but I couldn’t stop watching him.
I watched him watching me.
I wanted to memorize his face, so I never forgot the man who’d trapped me, belittled me, and abused. I would find some way to punish him.
I will.
As long as I knew his face, I would track him down and ensure pain for my pain, despair for my despair. I didn’t even need to know his name.
Dipping his bread into the honey, he took a controlled bite. “If you behave and do what I ask, you’ll survive another day.”
I gave him the finger. “If this is my life, why would I want to survive another day? If you’re going to keep me down in the darkness, why the hell would I be nice to you?”
He stilled. His fingers wrapped around the bread until it broke into crumbs and scattered over the damp floor. “Are you forgetting who’s the guilty party in this mess?”
I kept my head high. “You. You are. You’re holding me prisoner.”
He glowered and discarded the crushed bread for his peach. He bit into it. Juice glistened on his lips as he licked them slowly. “I’m not going to repeat our circumstances. I’m not going to repeat how you were the one to enter without permission. You’re the one forcing me to gather double the food and fuel necessary for a long winter. You’re the one who’s demanding things of me I don’t have the capacity to give. You.” He pointed the dripping peach in my direction. “You’re the guilty one. All I’m trying to do is protect myself. I can’t let you go because you’ll talk. I can’t seem to kill you until I’ve had my fill. Whatever I do to you is entirely my right because you upended my world. You’ve ruined everything.”
He massaged his temples and shook his head as if scattering painful thoughts. Inhaling hard, he snapped, “If I can be nice enough to provide for you—all when I had no intention of ever sharing my home again—the least you can do is quit your fucking complaining, eat your goddamn food, and agree to do whatever I ask.”
I sucked in a breath.
It was the most he’d ever spoken to me. His voice shaking off the cobwebs of silence. His fury was a tangible thing, snaking through the air, caressing my arms, running hot fingers through my hair.
Tension crackled between us the longer we stayed locked in a stare. His body stiffened, coiling with power as if he were two heartbeats away from launching himself at me.
He was hard, tenting his slacks with obvious arousal.
His face once again held no masks or pretends. He was angry—almost as angry as I was. He was horny—a constant state for him, it seemed. And he was...sorry.
I gasped at the naked apology buried deep within his eyes.
He feels sorry for what he’s doing?
My lungs filled with fight. “Stop doing this. I see your guilt. If you feel sorry for the way you’re treating me, then—”
“Quiet,” he hissed. “I feel nothing.”
“You feel something.” I dropped my stare to his erection. “If you want me as badly as you seem to, then be nice to me. You can choose to be my friend instead of my enemy.”
He laughed—a tattered noise that sounded as if it’d been wrenched from bleeding memories. “I don’t have friends.”
“Did you hurt them?” I spread my arms wide at the empty mansion. The ivy-covered palace hidden deep within a valley. “Is that why no one lives with you? You killed any friends and family like you keep threatening to do with me?”
His muscles bunched into knots as rage coated his face. “I’d shut up if I were you.”
“If words are my only weapon, I’ll use all that I can, thanks.” Bracing myself, I asked, “What happened here? What happened to you? Who gave you those scars?”
For the first time, shutters slammed over his gaze, blocking me from reading him. His hands shook as he threw his plate against the wall, smashing the crockery and sending his untouched carrot and breadcrumbs flying. “Questions like that will hurt you far fucking worse than they’ll hurt me.” Any emotion he might be feeling—any ability at sniffing out his truth vanished as black hate blazed over his features.
My skin prickled with electricity.
My heart hiccupped.
The entire cell filled with war.
He was a stranger.
He was my jailer.
Yet in that raw, vicious moment, my body sprang to life. My core clenched to be filled. Wetness gathered from all the shadows that existed inside me. I’d had those shadows for far longer than I could remember. I wanted things that went against my wishes. The strangeness I’d felt all my life. The sen
se of searching for something—wanting danger and darkness that went against every rule of living a safe and normal existence.
I felt linked to him.
Connected in some awful, unthinkable way.
I was more in tune and aware of him than I had been with any other male.
And it wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t right that I’d found such an intense physical reaction with someone who lived alone, looked like a forgotten castaway, and constantly threatened my right to live.
Why him?
Was I that starved of contact that I’d begun to seek it in cruelty instead of kindness? Was that why I hadn’t met anyone normal?
Because I wasn’t normal? Because I had a soul that was veined like granite. Light parts, black parts, quartz, and impurities combined.
Perhaps it was the tightrope of life and death I currently balanced on.
Maybe it was the lack of sleep and abundance of adrenaline—whatever my messed-up reasons, molten heat built between my legs.
His nostrils flared, and he swooped to his feet. A seam on his shirt ripped further as he jerked with need. Reaching for me, he grabbed my shoulders.
“Kneel.” His teeth flashed. His fingers bit into my skin, manhandling me from cross-legged to kneeling.
I fought him. “Let me go.”
“Kneel.” He pulled me forward, arranging me against my will. The moment I balanced on my knees, he tore at his fly, tearing the zipper down and popping the button. The slacks fell gratefully to his ankles, giving up their attempt at keeping him covered.
His bare cock did its best to stand to attention, thick with need and desire. However, his large size meant it hung heavy, stabbing into my chest instead of the ceiling. He quaked against the contact. His eyes hooded, and his voice turned into blackness itself. “Touch it.”
I scowled and rocked backward. “No.”
“No?” His eyebrows shot into his wild, roguish hair. “No is no longer an option for you. Do. What. I. Say.”
“Not until you give me sunlight.”
He groaned as a bead of pre-cum glistened on the tip. His hips thrust forward as his hands latched tighter around my shoulders, pulling me into him. “Suck me.”
I turned my head away, my hands landing on his thighs and pushing against his pulling. “No.”
“Do it!”
“No!” I strained to look up. Along his body to his eyes. His ripped and scarred body. His muscles etched beneath his shirt, his biceps threatening to shred the rest of the material dressing him.
With a savage growl, he ripped a hand off my shoulder and reached for his cock. For a fraction of a second, he wrapped his fist around himself and angled it closer to my unwilling mouth.
But then, he dropped himself as if he were laced in poison. He shook out his hand as his cock bobbed and his thighs clenched with dissatisfaction. His balls had drawn up so tight against his body, I couldn’t see them amongst his hair.
He shuddered and glanced at his hand again, almost as if he expected to see his skin being dissolved from daring to touch himself.
I froze.
What did that mean?
I could touch him, suck him, pleasure him, yet he couldn’t touch himself?
His tortured eyes met mine, no longer guarded by a shield but open for my rifling. Something terrible had happened to him. Beyond terrible. Something so painful, so intrinsically linked to self-pleasure that it’d forever destroyed his ability to masturbate.
I didn’t need to ask.
I knew.
And with a feral groan, he knew I knew.
He slapped me.
His palm bit hotly against my cheek, making me gasp with shock.
He stumbled backward, wrenching up his slacks. “I...I—” For a second, he looked like he’d be sick. As if physically raising a hand to me had driven him into a space he couldn’t breathe.
My cheek blazed, but the discomfort was nothing compared to the bruising he’d left behind from strangling me. He’d done far worse than slap me, so why did this abuse torment him the most?
“I...I can’t stay here.” With drunken steps, he bolted away from me and ripped open the door. At the last second before he disappeared, he looked over his shoulder, his manic stare meeting mine.
He swallowed hard, hate tangling with horror and horror knotting with need. If there was a word for the state of pain he was in, I would’ve said harrowed. He was harrowed and wanting and completely screwed up from a past that echoed with agony.
His lips pulled back, anger drowning his panic. “When I return, you will do exactly what I say, without fucking question. Just try to say no to me again.” He fisted the door handle, stalking over the threshold before snarling, “And eat your goddamn food!”
The door slamming ricocheted in my ears long after he’d gone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I’D TOUCHED MYSELF.
She’d made me angry enough, lust-fogged enough to grab that grotesque thing between my legs and touch it.
Oh, God.
The urge to vomit came strong again, bringing with it a chariot of memories, all screeching to be noticed, pounding fists at the barricaded door in my mind.
I fell to my knees the moment I bolted from her cell.
My head ached as if any second now, my skull would splinter, and my past would devour me alive.
I can’t breathe.
Memories swirled faster, blacker, thicker. No longer content to stay in my dreams, they scratched at me until I bled.
No, please.
Digging my nails into the concrete, I fell forward onto all fours, gasping and fighting, doing my best to cling to the present and not tumble back to my past.
Don’t.
A flicker of Fables when the corridors were full of evil laughter.
No.
A scent of white sage from the incense Mrs. Colta burned in her room.
Don’t!
A shard of pain as—
“See, Kas. See how good it feels?”
I gritted my teeth as Mrs. Willby curled her hand around mine, forcing my fingers to wrap around my flaccid cock. Her third husband stood behind me, naked and hard, stroking the crack of my ass.
He was new to Fables, but he’d embraced the lifestyle of his deviant wife with a lot more enthusiasm than her prior husbands. Each time they visited, they always requested me.
Just me.
To be shared by both of them.
Their favorite position was me fucking Mrs. Willby while her husband fucked me. The first time Mr. Willby took me, I’d screamed. I’d taken my pain out on his wife. Driving into her as hard as he drove into me.
They’d praised me.
They’d destroyed me.
Each time since, they chipped away at my strength, pouring me full of unhappiness and agony. My family of Fable slaves didn’t have the power to stick me back together again at night. Quell was the closest to me, and even she couldn’t stop the nightmares that’d started and never stopped.
Jareth had to gag me a week ago because they couldn’t get any sleep with my screaming.
“I don’t think you’re paying attention to me,” Mrs. Willby cooed, her pink painted lips pouting. Her face had aged in the few years she’d been visiting, and her new husband was at least a decade younger. At least he was an adult while I’d been denied such a thing.
“Suck him, Patricia,” Mr. Willby snapped. “This is taking too long.”
“Is that what you want, my darling Kassen?” Mrs. Willby dragged her hand over mine, forcing me to masturbate. “My mouth?”
I swallowed back bile. I bit back pain. I did my best to disassociate with whatever was about to happen.
A hand swatted me around the ear from behind as Mr. Willby growled, “Answer her. Tell her what you need to get hard so we can have our fun with you.”
I knew what the punishment was if I didn’t obey and satisfy our Fable guests, but today I was empty. Today, I had nothing left, and my body swayed as Mrs.
Willby dragged my hand up and down on a cock that no longer rose to attention.
Wes had been the same last year. I’d seen the scars our master had given him for not performing. The others thought he’d been taken away and disposed of.
Only I knew different.
Only I had found poor Wes chained in the cabin in the woods. He was fed drugs to do his duty. He lived alone in the dark, waiting to pleasure guests with nastier appetites.
That will happen to me if I don’t snap out of this.
I would be sent to the cabin where I’d never return alive. I’d be used like Wes. I would no longer have the protection of House Rules that kept all Fable slaves bruised, bleeding, and well-fucked but never broken or dead.
Mr. Willby stepped forward and pushed his wife away. Our combined grip fell apart, and my cock was free.
Free for a single breath before Mr. Willby grabbed it and once again forced my hand to squeeze.
“I’m going teach you how to beat off, my boy. Show you how to get yourself hard so you never come to us in this pathetic state again.” His eyes glinted as he pushed my thumb against my sensitive tip before grabbing my other hand and using it to cup my balls.
I wanted to kill him.
I wanted to die.
But slowly, sickly, my body reacted under his instruction.
He did what he promised and showed me that if I was touched in the right way, desire had nothing to do with it. Instinct kicked in. Nature took over and condemned me.
I grew hard all while I cursed the very feeling of my fingers working beneath his.
Of my skin on my skin.
Of my body betraying me.
Of my hand making me hard when all I wanted to do was run.
Of myself hurting myself.
I was the seducer.
The defiler, the traitor, the villain.
I was my own worst enemy.
“Good boy.” Mr. Willby smiled as he removed his hand from mine. “Keep going. Get that thing stiff as a stick, and then...we’re all going to have some fun.”
“STOP!” I punched the wall.
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