CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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“I’M NOT LONELY WHILE you’re here. That’s why you can’t go. Why you can never go. You’re mine.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. Kas’s voice repeated over and over in my head, distracting me.

He was unconscious and I had a parrot inside my mind.

Focus.

Gritting my teeth, I shoved away his agonizing confession and kept my mind on urgent things. Things like getting him back into the temporary ward where I’d been treating him.

The stretcher.

I’d left the stretcher that I’d hauled Kas from the cliff almost two weeks ago intact. The ropes were still tied into a hammock, the scuffed tree trunks resting around the side of the house. Abandoned but now gratefully back in use.

It was a case of déjà vu as I rolled his unconscious form onto the stretcher, gathered power in my legs to lift, and heaved myself forward to drag him over the threshold.

He didn’t make a sound as I dragged him through the kitchen, past the lobby, and back into the library where he belonged.

Sweat rolled down my temples by the time I tucked him into the blankets, fluffed a pillow behind his head, and hauled the transporter back outside—hopefully not to be used a third time.

During the entire process of bringing him inside, tending to him, and worrying for him, I locked down my thoughts and feelings. I didn’t go over what he’d said, what he’d done, or the numerous emotions I’d read on his face.

I didn’t let myself analyze anything—not a single eyebrow quirk—until he was safe, breathing calmly, and I managed to get two painkillers past his lips when he roused a little.

“I’m not lonely while you’re here. That’s why you can’t go. Why you can never go. You’re mine.”

Gem...stop it.

I sat beside him, brushing back his hair, cursing the way my heart hadn’t figured out how to beat correctly in his company. How could a man make me livid one moment and then liquid the next? Why had I felt ashamed when he was the one who locked a cuff around my ankle?

The way he looked at his vegetable garden? Ugh, the guilt almost crippled me. I should’ve taken more care. Had more respect about the value of each edible plant.

Dusk fell.

I stayed beside him, contemplating my options. If only my PLB still worked. A convoy of helicopters could arrive to fly him to a doctor.

Seeing as he’s too pig-headed to go to them.

Stars came out, twinkling through the library window. My mind raced with his fury that I’d helped myself to his supplies, the loneliness in his voice when speaking of his family, and the twisted mess left of a boy who’d been stolen so many years ago.

“I’m not lonely while you’re here. That’s why you can’t go. Why you can never go. You’re mine.”

Enough of this.

He showed no signs of waking up, and I had to be wise. While he was asleep, I had to undo the new imprisonment he’d trapped me with. Once that unsatisfactory task was dealt with, I would figure out what to prepare for dinner. Something that wouldn’t earn his wrath.

With a final look at his slumbering face, I pushed off the floor and marched to the desk by the wall. I rifled through every drawer, looking for a key to the leather leash I currently dragged around behind me.

Come on.

It has to be here somewhere.

This room had an authority about it. I didn’t need Kas to tell me that the large throne-like chair once belonged to the man he called Storymaker. His face had screamed that loud and clear when he’d woken the first time and flinched the moment he’d seen it. He didn’t need to verbalize that this wasn’t just a library to him. It’d been the hub of all the darkness in this despicable place.

I’d wondered, on the fifth or sixth day of his unmentionable nightmares, if I should move him to a different room. It seemed the shelves with their innocuous books triggered violent memories. He stared into the past and saw things I couldn’t, witnessing his family lined up before their master, waiting for instruction, praying they wouldn’t be given to a guest that night.

Despite Kas not telling me in exact paragraphs of what’d happened to him, his face did, his body did, his every flinch and grunt did. In the midst of whatever delusions his concussion gave him, I rocked in the corner with my blanket wrapped tight around me. On the nights when he was so far gone he muttered to Nyx and Wes, Neo and Elise, I’d wiped away my silent tears and cursed my cracking heart all over again. It was no longer whole. The pieces were in pieces. And those pieces were in irreparable fragments for learning what they’d all endured.

It was because of those fragments that I was now completely messed up where Kas was concerned. The sane part of me—the business-headed millionaire and successful entrepreneur—was beside herself with scorn. But the insane part of me—the love-sick dreamer who fantasized that she could be his cure—was determinedly blind to the actual real danger of living with a deranged victim.

A victim who couldn’t even acknowledge he’d been a victim.

A boy who’d grown into a man who’d suppressed each touch, crime, and wound that had wrongly been done to him. And because of my blindness, I’d allowed him to once again trap me.

You truly are one of a kind, Gem.

And not in a good way.

I sat back on my haunches, my hands still buried in useless drawers. Nothing but dust-free neatness. A few pens and perfectly stacked schematics on plumbing, wiring, and the original blueprints of building this diabolic place.

Just like everything in this mansion, the level of tidiness bordered on obsessive.

And the only person who was around to keep this poverty palace in such pristine condition was none other than the comatose man currently twitching in his sleep across the room.

Argh.

I fell backward and lay on the carpet.

What the hell am I going to do?

No answers were forthcoming. No epiphany on how to juggle a mentally broken man and my desire for freedom. I was pulled in two directions. I wanted to stay and to go. I had no idea which was right.

You could start by trying to get that damn cuff off.

Fresh purpose slipped through my limbs. I was tired. Immensely so. It seemed just dealing with Kas, even in small doses, drained me of everything I had.

With a groan, I pushed upright and climbed to my feet. Padding around Kas, still sleeping on the floor, I paused for a moment. Moonlight shone over his face, making his skin shimmer pewter in the dark. With his eyes closed and mouth soft, I could be forgiven for thinking he was a kind, wonderful man who lavished me with love and affection. He seemed to have that quality about him. He was protective of those he loved. I’d witnessed that protection. He’d sacrificed himself over and over again for his Fable siblings, according to his numerous nightmares.

A heart of gold, tarnished and dinged but still priceless, was inside that scarred chest of his. Perhaps, I would never figure out how to earn it. Maybe, this was an utter waste of time, and I should just run away now while I had the chance.

So why, as my eyes traced over his wild, long hair, his scruffy beard, and prematurely lined eyes, did my heart skip a stupid beat and yearn for him.

I didn’t even know him.

Not really.

I only knew his nightmares and not the man left behind.

So how could I explain the painful bond I felt toward him?

How could I admit that, for all his savageness, I found him undeniably handsome and struggled with hot desire whenever we were close?

Was I just like those guests who’d abused him? Was I that horrendous that I’d stayed because I was physically turned on by him, despite his tragic past?

If I was a good person, wouldn’t I shut down all feelings of hunger? Wouldn’t I treat him as my brother? Someone who deserved a hug without my heart pounding for more?

God...is he right?

Did I take advantage of him that night? The night when he was a sweet teenager who’d blushed and asked me out. Who’d kissed me so softly yet the arrow of it had somehow pierced the very fabric of who I was?

Yet, when we’d first met, he was the one who forced me to my knees. He’d commanded I satisfy him. He’d demanded I grant him sexual pleasure, proving he was willing to do to me what had been done to him.

His pain had made him a beast. An unfathomable, unsavable beast.

My chest hurt.

“What are you doing to me, Kassen Sands?”

His slave name fell from my lips; a mantra I’d repeated on the many nights I’d lain in the library, trying to keep him alive. I’d stolen a copy and read the book of fables more times than I’d admit. I felt as if I knew his family from reading the fables they’d chosen and the names they’d invoked to survive this place.

How sad that Kas had chosen the Fable of Happiness, yet all I seemed to give him was grief.

“How am I supposed to help you, huh?”

He didn’t reply. Didn’t toss. Didn’t mumble. He just kept sleeping. His secrets were quiet, but his face couldn’t hide his pain. Decades worth. Far too much for a lone bumbling girl to fix.

“I’m not lonely while you’re here. That’s why you can’t go. Why you can never go. You’re mine.”

Stop thinking about that.

He didn’t mean it.

He was slurring with a concussion as he’d said it. And even if he did, didn’t he see that my very presence was what destroyed him?

For all my promises of granting him happiness. Of my assurances that I was the genie he dreamed of, the kindest thing I could do was leave.

Leave and never come back.

He was strong enough to live with the symptoms of a concussion until they passed. His arm would heal if he let the broken bone have time to knit. His other cuts and scrapes were superficial.

I could send someone.

I could go home, ensure a medical team knew how to find him, and step out of his life as firmly as I’d stepped into it.

That would be the kindest thing. It would give him back his independence, his hard-won peace and refuge.

He’d bound me because he was terrified of being alone again. And I’d done that to him. I’d invaded his territory, reminded him of companionship, then ran from him the moment I spied an opportunity. I’d taken whatever peace he’d found here and torn it into pieces.

He was better off alone.

I only seem to make things worse.

I’d eaten his vegetables without understanding the painstaking process of growing them. I’d investigated the bedrooms upstairs and borrowed clothing from women who’d raped him.

The longer I stayed here, the more I would hurt him. It was inevitable because we came from different worlds. I came from chaos and noise and life. He came from calm and silence and death.

His request for me to stay was uttered from a desperate man who’d had his entire existence upheaved by an unthinking, brazen girl who’d done her best to repair what she’d broken but was now painfully aware that she couldn’t.

Not this way at least.

I’ve hurt him enough.

Leaving now seemed cruel. It went against everything I believed in. But really, it would be a blessing. The nicest gift I could give him.

It was obvious he wouldn’t cope in society. And it was also obvious I couldn’t stay here for the rest of my life.

Our meeting had been wrong, and our separation would fix that wrong.

I nodded, crossing my arms against the pain of saying goodbye. The idea solidified quickly, warning me to choose this path now before my mind overthought it.

I couldn’t be responsible for this man’s happiness or his sadness. He’d heal quicker if I wasn’t there to hurt him.

“I’m sorry, Kas. For everything.” Hugging myself, I looked at his wild beauty one last time. I imprinted the only man who’d crowbarred his way into my heart with violence and sexual domination, and then I turned and strode from the library.

He would be out for hours, judging by his previous episodes.

I had time to clean up the kitchen—I’d seen his lip curl at the mess I’d caused—and ensure I left what I’d used in tidy condition, just like he would. I would make a plan, confirm this was the right thing for him and for me, and then, I would figure out a way to remove the cuff, throw away the leash, and walk out the door forever.

* * * * *

Come on. Come on.

Dammit!

I fumbled for the nineteenth time with the cuff. I sat on the kitchen floor with the smallest fillet knife I could find. My back hurt from curling over my leg, and the marble tiles beneath me had flattened my ass to a pancake.

And I still hadn’t left.

The now sparkling kitchen didn’t own any key or tool to free me. No scissors were sharp enough to hack through the hardened leather. No oil—even if there had been any in the cupboards—could help me wriggle my way out of the tight binding.

The padlock was the only chance I had at getting free, and so far, it refused to relinquish me. The frustrating thing was intricate. A hard nugget of metal with just a tiny pinhole instead of a key slot—and no matter how hard I pulled, poked, or twisted, the metal stayed put.

I’d tried stabbing it, jiggling it, even went as far as placing the blade against my leg and trying to saw the thick, impenetrable leather with the knife.

However, unless he gave me the strange key or I somehow managed to use the wood ax from the shed to get free (without hacking off my own leg), it was a dead end.

Fine.

I’ll just have to climb with a heavy chain tucked into my waistband.

Not the safest, but beggars couldn’t be choosers—wasn’t that the saying? Not a very nice one if you asked me.

Standing, I placed the knife on the clean countertop and readjusted the four packets of instant pasta I’d left as a peace offering for eating his vegetables. Beside those packets were a mountain of chocolate bars, fruit roll-ups, muesli bars, and the rest of the painkillers, along with the empty second backpack that he’d taken from my Jeep.

I hadn’t left myself a lot of supplies to climb and hike home, but my guilt wouldn’t let me leave without trying to apologize.

Okay...this is it. Are you sure you want to do this?

I had no answer, but I believed this was the best thing...for both of us. He’d get his asylum back; I’d go home to my house. We would both move on and forget.

Inhaling hard, ignoring the prickle behind my eyes, I turned and headed toward my already packed backpack waiting by the door.

“I’m not lonely while you’re here. That’s why you can’t go. Why you can never go. You’re mine.”

Argh, what if I was making a mistake?

Gem...stop it.

You’ve lost sight of reality. This man kidnapped you. He sexually forced you. He—

Yeah, yeah. I know, I know.

I sniffed and balled my hands.

But he also looked at me for help. Trusted me in his dreams. Ate from my hands. Moaned at my touch.

Gah, stop it!

Time to go.

With jittery fingers, I pulled the straps and heaved the weight onto my back. Liquid threatened to slip from my traitorous eyes as I buckled and cinched my belongings into position.

Don’t you dare.

Do not cry over this.

You tried.

You did more than most.

It’s obvious you can’t stay.

I gritted my teeth. My jumping thoughts were right. Josh deserved to know I was alive. I’d been missing for three weeks. If he wasn’t so young, I’d fear he’d have died from a heart attack from all the stress. My mother would be panicked, but thanks to Dad’s death, she was sort of numb to disasters these days. However, I still owed her a hug and an assurance that my ‘crazy career climbing pebbles,’ as she called it, hadn’t cost me my life as she’d morbidly predicted.

I’d found a man in a valley.

I’d tried to help that man.

I’d developed feelings for that man.

I was turning my back on his well-being to protect mine.

I was selfless and selfish.

I was being a good daughter but a horrible friend.

A considerate sister but a disgraceful nurse.

Life was never easy.

Planting my hand firmly on the door handle, I yanked it wide. Starlight and midnight flooded into the kitchen, embracing my dash into its inkiness.

Unlike the last time I ran, Kas wouldn’t be able to chase after me.

There would be no sex in a thunderstorm. No talking in a Jeep. No falling against all common sense in the rain.

You know you have no choice, Gem.

I smiled wryly. Unless my choice included forsaking my family and choosing Kas for my ever after, I was right.

There was no choice to make.

It’s okay.

He’ll be fine.

With a final hitched inhale, I stepped into the night.