CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

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“NO, YOU’RE DOING IT wrong,” I barked.

Goddammit, she infuriated me.

And perplexed me.

And scared me.

And undid me, one shitty piece at a time.

She was right.

My mind might not remember what’d happened last night, but my heart sure as fucking did. And it tripped over itself every time she was near.

“How else am I supposed to do it?” She huffed, swiping at hair that’d come unstuck from her ponytail. Dirt smeared her cheek, and the smell of compost was ripe in the air. For the last two hours, we’d stood side by side in the shed, filling pots, planting seeds, and doing our best to ignore all the unsaid things between us.

I didn’t even know why I was bothering.

The sun didn’t last as long these days, which meant the growth patterns had already adjusted for the colder seasons. I was probably wasting precious seeds on an experiment that wouldn’t yield edible results, but...what fucking choice did we have?

We didn’t have enough to last the winter.

If the animals sharing the valley had already started nesting elsewhere, then trapping enough to feed us would be tough. Whatever chocolate was left in Gemma’s backpacks wouldn’t be enough to keep us going. And we had no plan B.

Therefore, we had no choice but to try.

“Don’t just shove them in there. They’re delicate.” I grabbed the pot she was currently stabbing celery seeds in too deep. “How do you expect seedlings to reach sunlight if you’ve pushed them to the bottom? Jesus.”

I waited for her to give me attitude. To roll her eyes or make some snide comment about my teaching methods. Instead, she carefully watched me create a small divot in the dirt, pinch a few seeds inside, then cover them lightly with a tiny amount of earth.

“Just so you know,” she muttered. “I own my own house, but I’ve never mowed my own lawn or pulled weeds. The only plant I’ve ever been tasked to look after was a fern my brother bought me. It died because I went off climbing for a few weeks and didn’t water it.”

I raised an eyebrow, brushing away the remaining earth from the pot lip. “And your point is?”

“I’m not blessed with a green thumb.”

I passed the pot back to her. “You just haven’t had a good teacher.” I coughed with a half-laugh, half-groan. “Or never been so hungry you’ll literally eat anything. That tends to make you learn pretty quickly on how to gather and hunt.”

She gave me a look that clenched my belly, reaching out to take the celery pot. “I won’t ask if living out here on your own was hard. That would be a really stupid question.”

“It would be stupid.” I turned and grabbed a tray, ready to sow lettuce and mixed greens. “So don’t.”

“But I want to know how you did it. You said you lost your memory for five years—”

My head shot toward her. “I said that?”

She nodded. “In the bath. Amongst other things.”

I shivered.

What else had we talked about, and why the goddamn hell couldn’t I remember?

She shifted on the spot. “So...how did you survive if you had no memory?”

I kept my hands busy, tipping soil and creating pockets for seeds. “You don’t need to know who you are to figure out how to survive. It’s irrelevant.”

“No, but you do need skills.” She waved at the mess on the bench in front of us. “Like this. If I suddenly found myself alone, not knowing who the hell I was or how to go home, I wouldn’t have the foresight to learn how to grow a string of beans.”

I pushed past her, stepping outside into the early afternoon sun. “You don’t know what you’re capable of until you’re forced to find out.”

She followed me, carrying the tray of seedlings and placing it on the ground as I waved instruction with the watering can I’d already filled.

“What was that first crop like?” she asked softly as I tipped a shower of water over the freshly planted pots. “Did it give you joy, knowing you could survive even if you didn’t know who you were?”

A chill shot down my spine at her insight.

Yes, it gave me joy.

It gave me something to live for even though death was a constant whisper inside my head.

I stopped pouring and ducked to grab the tray, but she beat me to it.

“Ah, ah.” She clucked her tongue. “You’re supposed to be resting that arm. Lifting is my job.”

I just grunted and pointed at the cart by the ivy-covered wall. “Put it on there.”

She did as she was told, then turned back toward me, still waiting for an answer. Seemed whatever had happened last night had loosened her tongue. There weren’t arguments between us now, just constant interrogations. Her questions made my head ache, and my desire to be alone increased every minute.

Massaging my nape (with my good hand), I muttered, “That first crop was...the best thing in the world. The first sprout, the first vegetable, the first taste of something I made from nothing.” I didn’t want to look at her, but her presence summoned me. My eyes searched for hers and got caught in the kindness glowing there. No, not just kindness, newness, and never-ending eagerness to know me.

I didn’t like that.

I didn’t like her questions.

I didn’t like this.

Whatever this was.

Giving her a sneer, I headed to the cart and pushed it toward the kitchen door. “Of course, now that you’re helping, we’ll be lucky if anything germinates, thanks to your heavy hands.”

She shrugged, not bothered. “You were the one who said this might be a waste of time.”

I huffed.

I crossed the threshold, leaving dirty tracks on the marble tiles from the cart wheels. “Come.” Fables no longer had a greenhouse. A particularly bad hailstorm had ensured the glass did not survive.

But I had a better idea.

I couldn’t make the sun shine for longer hours, but I could ensure the seedlings would be kept at an even temperature all winter by sheltering them in the games room where the largest hearth and the warmest fire would flicker.

“Gemma,” I muttered, “come on.”

The chain slithered behind me, clinking on the tile, ensuring she’d have no choice but to follow. There was comfort in knowing that but also impatience too.

Yet another thing she’d been right about. My temper had reached its limit with how inconvenient working with the long chain had become. It hooked on everything. Later today, we were going into the woods to collect firewood, but the thought of Parable catching on roots and branches...fuck, what a nightmare.

But...the key.

Who the hell knows where—

THWACK!

“What the—” I spun, making the kitchen swirl and my head pound. Abandoning the cart, I tripped back outside. My gaze instantly fell on Gemma. Sunlight etched her with gold, highlighting her cheekbones and arms as she yanked at the ax embedded in the ground by her feet.

I forgot all about the seedlings.

Panic drenched my blood.

Stalking to her, I snatched the ax. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You could’ve chopped your damn leg off!” Fisting the handle, I scanned her body, ensuring she hadn’t rearranged anything. My muscles locked as my heart raced. I honestly didn’t know what I’d do if she’d maimed herself.

Is she bleeding?

Anything missing?

Fear forced words up my throat. “Are you...are you okay?”

She just smirked. Smirked as if I hadn’t just had a fucking heart attack over her welfare. “I solved our issue.”

“What issue?” My temper soared, ripping through my concern.

“The fact that you can’t remember where the key is issue.”

I narrowed my eyes, locking onto the chain.

The now dismembered chain.

She kicked out her ankle, revealing a short leash that could easily be tucked into the waistband of a skirt or threaded through a pair of leggings.

“Now, darling Kas, you won’t do anything stupid, will you?”

Storymaker lashed his hand around my ankle while his other hovered with a key. I tried to hide my desperation to be free, doing my best to keep my face respectful and contrite. “No, sir.”

“Because if I release you and find out you’re once again scurrying around in the dark, then this goes back on your ankle for the rest of your life. Got it?”

No way.

A month was bad enough.

A month of knowing Storymaker felt my every move. A month of constantly backtracking around furniture so I could earn slack to serve guests or do my chores. Each time I jerked in my sleep with a nightmare, the chain let Storymaker know. The first few times, he’d charged into the dorm and beat me, just for the sake of it. He claimed it was because I’d tried to leave my bed, but in reality, it was just an excuse to hurt me.

At least the entire month I wore Parable, he’d never laid another finger on my other family members. They were boring to him. I was the fly, and he was the spider, and he relished playing with me.

“I’m only letting you go because I’m sick of your twitching waking me up at night. Don’t make me regret this.” Stroking my cheek, he dropped his gaze to my mouth. “Otherwise, I might just make an exception to my sexual preferences and see why all our guests rave about you.”

My stomach revolted.

I almost vomited.

I waited for the command that I couldn’t refuse. The instruction to serve and get on my pathetic, conditioned knees. But after a second, he blinked and inserted the key into the padlock. When the cuff fell off my ankle, I swallowed a groan.

Pulling up his shirt, he unlocked and unbuckled the belt from his waist.

He smiled as he stood, leaving the long length of chain on the floor. “Put that away, nice and safe, Kassen. That way, if you disobey me again, you’ll know exactly where to go to retrieve it.”

Fuck that. I wanted to burn it.

I wanted to smash it into teeny tiny pieces and—

I gasped, stumbling to the side, lost for a second as Storymaker’s room switched for sunshine and vegetable patches.

The heavy shame and crawling disgust I’d felt wearing Parable crawled over me. It’d psychologically screwed me up. For months after being chained, I’d been embarrassingly obedient. I’d no longer sneaked extra food for my family. I turned my back on their wounds and refused to slink through the dark to get medicine.

I was a perfect little slave, and to this day, it left oily guilt in my stomach. I still couldn’t shed the shame. I’d conveniently shoved that memory away—just like all the rest. I forgot what a nasty imprisonment Parable was. I’d forced Gemma to wear it. The girl currently helping me survive winter. The girl who no longer looked at me as if I was her enemy.

The girl I was fucking falling for—

Get it off!

The ax handle grew heavy and hot in my hands. I might wear a different end of the chain these days, but it still bound me to this place, to my memories, to the masters who I despised. It made me become that master. It made me the bastard in Gemma’s eyes.

Get it the fuck off me.

Swinging the ax, I didn’t aim true.

I just struck.

I struck and struck, clods of dirt went flying as I hacked at the monstrous chain.

“Wait!” Gemma sprang backward, getting the hell out of the way as I went wild, chopping Parable into pieces just like I wished I could’ve back then.

Storymaker’s ghost slithered in my mind, hissing retribution and pain.

I hit harder.

I would’ve sliced the damn chain into ribbons if it wasn’t for my broken arm sending shooting pains through my bone, making me hiss, sending my swing unstable.

“Stop!” Gem hugged herself, staying a safe distance. “Stop, you’re hurting your arm again! For God’s sake, I’ll do it.”

I folded forward, the ax blade wedging into the dirt as sweat poured down my back. I looked at the massacre. The ground had well and truly been murdered, including the chain that now rested in broken links.

Satisfaction soothed my mania.

It’s done.” Breathing hard, I dropped the ax and stepped back, waiting to see how many metal loops followed me. Not many. Just a short reminder. A length to match hers, no longer joined together—just a memento of so many sick and twisted things.

My knees wobbled as she moved toward me, picking up the short length and tugging it slightly, reeling me into her, a slave caught by a leash.

I wanted to tell her to stop. To let me go. But the closer she came and the more steps she dragged me forward, the thicker the air became.

Every inch of me buzzed with need as we stopped in the middle of the garden, her hands wrapped around the chain as if she never wanted to let me go. I was captive before her, aware my heart had a new master now, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

“I promise I won’t run,” she whispered, her head tipping up, her hair slipping down her back like liquid honey.

I licked my lips. My blood hummed, and my bones sparked, and I couldn’t fucking breathe without inhaling her delicious scent of papaya, soil, and woodsmoke.

Woodsmoke?

I looked over my shoulder to the screen hiding the bath from the wind. Even from here, remnants of charred firewood and muddy ground were visible, giving simple and obvious evidence that the bath had been used last night.

It’d been filled and lit, and I’d apparently fucked this beautiful girl beneath the moon, and we’d kissed and talked, and I—

I can’t goddamn remember!

It wasn’t fair that I’d forgotten.

I was sick of being sick.

I was done with all of this.

The living alone.

The constant hard work and endless loneliness.

The refusal of my mind to give me anything but darkness.

The blank moments. The haze. The constant headaches and mood swings.

I wanted more.

I wanted her.

I wanted her even knowing I might forget her, hurt her...kill her.

I wanted to be nice to her.

But how do I do that?

How did I put aside a decade of animalistic existence? How did I shrug off the beast I’d become and willingly give up my life?

Because loving her would demand my life.

My sacrifice.

My pain.

And I would pay it because the way she looked at me? The way she trembled with welcome, with wariness, with hope—it undid me in the worst kind of ways.

It reminded me of those eight kids who I’d sheltered in the dark. Of my vow to take every rape, every bloodplay, every disgusting game so they didn’t have to.

That was the only part of me that was good.

It redeemed me, even if it condemned me.

But I didn’t know if I had the strength to be that again.

“Kas...” Gemma licked her lips, her blond hair clean and fresh, her body drugging me the longer we stood so close. “You’ve gone white.”

I gulped.

I felt feverish and twitchy.

I wanted to run, to strike, to fuck, to cry.

I wanted her to touch me, all while I wanted her to get far away from me.

I didn’t understand what was happening.

How could I stand so still, all while my thoughts unraveled? How could my heart race with anger directed at everyone, everything, yet my cock hardened with a sudden desperation?

Lust twisted with trust, granting an intoxicating, bone-deep knowledge that I could be true with her.

I could talk to her, and she wouldn’t run.

I could share what I’d done and how I’d been treated, and she wouldn’t look at me as if I was dirty or broken.

It would be a gift.

A curse.

A brand new experience that would probably break me.

“I...I don’t know what to say.” I shrugged, drawn to her body, her eyes, her goodness. For the first time in my life, I wanted to try out honesty. I didn’t want to filter, choosing what to say in order to protect the family I’d chosen to guard. I wanted to speak from my heart even though it fucking terrified me.

“You don’t have to say a thing.” She inched closer until our feet touched and heat ignited hotter between us. “Do you want me to let you go?” Her fingers curled around the chain, tugging on my waist.

Did I?

Yes.

No.

Christ, I don’t know.

“What do you want, Kas?” she whispered. “You’re scaring me, and not in the usual way. You’re impossibly still, yet I know your mind is racing. I see it in your eyes. In the way you clench your jaw and brace your shoulders. You’re fighting something, and I don’t know how to help you.”

I sucked in a heavy breath. “Would you? Help me? If you knew what I’m struggling with? Even after everything?”

She nodded instantly, her hair dancing in the sunlight. “Always.”

Her answer rolled my shoulders with yet another layer of unfathomable emotion.

I didn’t deserve this woman.

Not even a scrap of her.

Whatever had happened last night might always be erased from me, but somehow, we were no longer strangers, no longer enemies.

She had the power to become my fucking everything.

I would fight to the death for her. I would take any beating. I would put myself between her and every monster imaginable.

I would give her everything, and wasn’t that the crux of my problem?

She. Was. Mine.

But in return, that meant I was hers.

Heart, body, and fucked-up soul.

And if I admitted to that, it would be my Fable family all over again.

I would give up my life to keep her safe, even if that meant keeping her safe from me. I would do whatever was necessary to make her happy, and the key to her happiness was to release her.

To let her go home.

Where I wouldn’t be able to watch over her—wouldn’t be able to protect her from men like Storymaker. My gut churned with acid at the thought of Storymaker ever getting his hands on Gemma. Of guests making her scream.

Fuck.

My muscles locked with fury.

“Hey...” Her hand landed on my chest, her fingers pressing against my thundering heart. “It’s okay.” Her hazel gaze glittered with worry, ringed with gold and green, a wisdom that made me feel unworthy and adrift.

I felt so goddamn lost all the time.

I needed an anchor. I wanted her to be that anchor.

But even now, I felt the looseness in my thoughts. The haze of white just waiting for me to snap into forgetfulness.

She swayed closer, her nipples hard beneath her dress. “Do you want me to let you go?” she asked again, her fingers flexing on the chain she still held, keeping me trapped.

I looked down at her hands, one on my chest and one on the remnants of Parable, and I saw a fork in my future.

The chain had all the power to suck me back and keep me imprisoned. I could continue to be a toy for the ghosts inside this mansion and fight demons that would never die.

Or...or I could choose her.

I could finally admit that even though it would drive me insane in a different way, I wanted to be worthy of this girl.

Her.

I want her.

My stomach clenched as she sucked in a breath, sensing I’d reached a decision. The world fell away as I reached out and cupped her breast, running my thumb over her nipple.

She twitched as a noiseless moan escaped her.

I looked up.

I studied this girl who’d trespassed and made my life a living hell, and suddenly, it was all too much. Drawing my hand from her breast, over her throat, to her cheek, I pressed my palm against her softness.

Her eyes snapped closed as her entire body shivered. “You don’t have to hold yourself back with me,” she breathed. “I know...I know you want me.”

Dragging my thumb over her bottom lip, I forced words through a tight and gravelly throat. “But do you...want me?”

Her eyes flared, more gold than green, vibrant with lust. “If you are aware of who I am and where we are, then yes.” Her tongue touched my thumb with a sensuous lick. “I want you. I’ve always wanted you, even while I fought you.”

Pulling her to me, I smashed my mouth to hers.

She gasped in shock as I broke the seal of her lips, driving my tongue deep.

I wasn’t slow.

I wasn’t gentle.

I was hungry.

Fucking starving for things yesterday had given me, and today had wiped clean. I was jealous of myself. Furious that I’d had this girl, I’d come in her, we’d shared things I’d always craved, yet it was as if it never happened.

“You’re mine.” I kissed her rough and mean.

Chain or no chain, she would always be mine.

If I couldn’t remember, then I’d have to take her all over again. And again. I’d have to fuck her until I knew nothing else but her.

Wrapping my arms around her, I hauled her against my body, kissing her so damn deep. She wriggled, fighting for space, for air. Her hands landed on my chest.

I waited for her to push me away. To reveal she hadn’t wanted me, after all.

Instead, she tried to climb me.

A trigger had erupted in her too, sending her over the edge where I’d already fallen. “Kas. Yes—” Her head tipped left and right, her lips skating over mine, her tongue twisting deep as I kissed her. “Harder. Please? You can touch me as hard as you need.”

Harder?

That word wormed into my skull and obliterated everything else.

My arms bunched, locking her to me, holding her painfully tight as my hips thrust against hers. Our kiss turned manic. I kissed her with no mercy, taking advantage of her open, hungry mouth, capturing her tongue, her taste, and claiming every dark, wet piece of her.

She plastered herself against me, placing herself entirely into my control as our bodies writhed together. I shoved my thigh between her legs, pushing up her dress. She rode me. Her hand flew down and found my erection, stroking me through my jeans.

The kiss evolved from desperate to savage in one second flat.

All the pent-up fury, the forgetfulness, the ferocity gushed out of me, smashing like a tidal wave from my messed-up heart to hers.

Her left hand wrapped behind my neck, pulling me into her. Her right stroked harder, faster.

I needed inside her.

Now.

Grabbing handfuls of her ass, I yanked up and in. Her hand fell away as I ground my aching erection against her pussy, her dress spreading with her thighs.

She gasped.

I kissed her deeper.

She squirmed.

I thrust against her.

I consumed her body and soul. She kissed me as if she wasn’t just participating but imprinting me, making sure this moment couldn’t be stolen from her. Doing her best to make me remember. Hurting me all over again.

I’d done things to this woman. I’d promised things I couldn’t remember. I’d given her pieces of myself, and then I’d taken them away again.

I had the shitty existence of not knowing what those things were, but Gemma...she had it harder because she’d thought I was cured.

That she’d cured me.

Fuck, if only it was that easy.

“Kas—” Her legs hooked over my hips, grinding her core against my pulsing cock. “I need you inside me. Please.”

She set fire to every inch of my idiotic heart and greedy soul.

I wanted to be free with her. I wanted to indulge in things and take everything she had to offer, but most of all, I wanted to fucking remember those things after we’d finished.

Ripping my mouth from hers, I panted, “Make me a promise, Gemma Ashford.” Her head snapped up, lust-fogged eyes struggling to concentrate on mine. I kept her cradled in my arms even though my broken arm burned and my cock was seconds away from exploding. I had to make her vow. “Right here, right now, make me a promise.”

She swallowed, her lips swollen and face etched with need. “Anything.”

I bent and kissed her. Softly. Maddingly gentle. “Remind me.”

She sucked in a breath. “Of what?”

“Of everything.” I pulled her closer, my hips still rocking into hers. “Whatever I forget, remember for me. If I ask, tell me. If I don’t, understand it’s not because I’m running from knowing but because I’m not strong enough. I-I don’t know how long these symptoms will last. That damn book said it could take years...” My jaw clenched with denial, but I forced myself to finish. “I don’t expect you to record every little thing, but please...” I rocked against her heat, her incredible body. “Remember the important bits. Remind me to keep trying, even if it seems like I’m failing. Tell me how I treat you, how I speak to you—teach me to be the man you deserve, and I’ll do it. Help me to be better.”

She flinched, her eyes mirroring the sorrow that consumed me. She took a moment to reply, tears welling, making all the spaces inside me fill with haunted, harrowed things. Finally, she said firmly, almost coldly. “I promise.”

I kissed her.

She grabbed handfuls of my hair, holding on as my tongue dived deep and our kiss turned sharp and primitive. Both of us sealing the promise. Doing our best to convince ourselves that it would work.

It would keep me with her.

It would make me better.

“Take me, Kas,” Gemma moaned, our heads dancing, our tongues tangling, our breathing matching in haggard rhythm.

I stumbled to the side, my body rock fucking hard and no longer willing to tolerate not being inside her. Spinning around, I marched her to the wall.

Pre-cum rippled up my cock at the thought of taking her.

Urgency made me jerky and mean.

This would be quick and vicious. Whatever softness I might or might not have given last night was gone. Today, I was nothing but brutality.

She wanted it hard.

So did I.

I wanted bruises.

I wanted marks.

I wanted my body to be covered in mementos of what happened here so I would remember.

I will.

She cried out as her spine hit the wall. Ivy leaves scattered around us, landing in her hair as we crashed against the vines. I waited for her to tell me to stop even as my hands grabbed the hem of her dress, ripping it up her legs to bunch it at her waist.

I looked down.

Naked.

No underwear.

No obstruction.

Fucking hell, this woman.

She’d be the death of me.

Not the bastards who’d bought me. Not the guests who’d broken me.

Her.

This girl who found me, wanted me, and promised me she’d stay.

I choked as another wash of savagery ignited. I ripped at my shorts, fumbling with the zipper.

My cock sprung free.

Her hand latched immediately around my length.

My head fell back as I let out a guttural groan. “Goddammit, Gemma.”

“Do you like that?” She buried her face in my neck, her teeth scraping on my throat.

I couldn’t speak.

My mind swam. The garden flickered. All that mattered was her touch, pumping me up and down. I shoved her harder against the wall. I grabbed her chin and plunged my tongue into her mouth.

In return, she fisted me, stroked me, dug her thumb into my crown, and smeared wetness down the hypersensitive veins underneath.

We matched.

Violence to violence.

Lust to lust.

My vision spluttered as I fucked her hand.

My breathing turned shallow, and my entire body became twitchy and desperate. An orgasm built in my belly.

I had to be inside her.

Pushing her hand away, I shoved her higher. Once her hips aligned with mine, I pinned her against the ivy again and fell on her.

My hips surged forward, my cock stabbing the wall, her thigh, everything but her pussy.

“Jesus Christ.” I reached down and went to fist myself, needing to guide my desperation to her entrance.

But I couldn’t do it.

I couldn’t touch my own body, and how goddamn pathetic was that?

But she knew.

She reached between us, grabbing me again and lining us up without a word.

I think I fell in love with her for that.

I think I gave over my entire being for the simple acknowledgment of my flaws, acceptance of my faults, and her absolute kindness instead of judgment.

Leaving the head of my cock on the precipice of impaling her, she reached up and locked both hands on my shoulders.

Our eyes met.

They met, and they held, and I wanted her with a gut-shredding pain.

I pushed into her wetness...slowly, agonizingly.

Her mouth fell wide.

I stopped halfway in, tormenting both of us.

Her groan matched mine.

We shivered and trembled.

We were wrapped up and suffocating in the final second while we remained two people. I couldn’t breathe as our eyes never unlocked. I felt as if I belonged and was lost and that nothing else existed all at the same confusing time.

She was mine.

Yet it felt as if I’d never be able to keep her.

Anger poured through me, shattering my self-control.

“You want it hard? Take it.” I plunged into her.

I drove my entire length into her in one deep, deep thrust and didn’t stop until she took everything. Every inch, right to the hilt. “Take all of me.”

Heaven and home, hades and hell.

The walls inside my mind crumbled, the chains around my thoughts unraveled, and I was left free. Free-falling into her, caught by her body, wrapped tight by her pussy, shielded from all the shit in my life thanks to her.

I wanted to kiss her so fucking bad.

But I couldn’t stop looking at her.

Our stares had mated as well as our bodies, binding us together as I pulled back and surged forward, burying myself inside her, again and again.

She smiled with a tinge of sadness. Her fingers reached up to tuck long hair behind my ears. She bounced in my arms as I fucked her.

She was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. The only person I ever wanted. The missing pieces of so many holes inside me. I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to share and confess and get on my knees with oaths that she was it for me.

She’s mine.

And as long as I had her, I’d be okay.

As long as she was safe, I—

Whiteness.

Nothingness.

Everything went blank.

I was lost in silence while bleach dripped through my mind. The whiteness turned to chalk, dusting me with despair.

I-I—

I tripped back.

I didn’t know where I was. What I’d been doing. I couldn’t see a damn thing.

Something nudged me, upsetting my balance.

I landed on something hard, biting my tongue as the whiteness slowly faded, followed by the oversaturation of light, sound, and smell.

“Kas...Kas. You’re okay.” Hands in my hair. A woman kneeling before me. “Don’t fight it. You’re fine.”

Who...who—

I frowned, trying to work out who—

Gemma!

Ah, fuck, Gem.

I scooted backward, breaking her hold on me and shoving my broken arm up. “Don’t...don’t touch me. I might hurt you.”

“You won’t,” she snapped, full of conviction and power. “It wasn’t a nightmare. It was a blackout. You had them yesterday. You said they were nothing, but this one...” She sniffed, and her voice cracked. “You weren’t there.” She rubbed her nose, sitting back against the mansion’s wall. “You were gone. Your body was inside me, Kas, yet your mind...I couldn’t reach you.”

I scrambled farther away, glancing at her body. Her peach-tone dress covered her legs, her hair held ivy leaves, but there was no evidence I’d been inside—

She held up her hand, pointing at my crotch. “Before you argue that sex didn’t happen, look at yourself.”

I followed her finger, and my teeth snapped together. My shorts bit into my thighs, and wetness covered my very erect cock. Wetness from her. Wetness that said she’d wanted me as much as I’d wanted her.

Instantly, desire shot through me. The hiss in my balls for a release. The tingle down my spine to finish.

I shifted to touch her. To fill her again.

But I shied back.

No.

No way could I finish.

What if I blacked out again? What if I hurt her and didn’t even know?

Christ, what is happening to me?

Shaking my head, I forced myself to go back a few minutes, trying to learn what triggered me. Slowly, pieces returned. Pieces of promises, thrusts, and souvenirs of rough sex against an ivy-vined wall.

And I froze.

Because the obviousness of it was too big to ignore.

My walls had fallen the moment I’d sunk inside her. The trip wires and safety measures I’d installed after my memories came back after five years of nothing were decimated.

She’d done that.

She was so good, so perfect, that every part of me relaxed in her company. Even my mind relaxed, giving her everything.

Never.

I could never afford to do that.

Those walls were there for a reason.

“I...I have to go.” I staggered to my feet. My fingers fumbled with my zipper as I pulled up my shorts, wincing as my cock argued about being confined and denied.

Lust still hummed in my blood. I wanted her with every fiber of my being. But I wanted to keep her safe more.

Gemma stood too, watching me carefully. “You said that last night, and I let you go. I’ve regretted it ever since.” Stepping toward me, she whispered, “Wherever you go, I go. I’m not letting you out of my sight today.”

“That’s not a good idea.” I swallowed hard. “I...I need some time to—”

“Firewood!” she blurted. “Let’s go collect firewood.” Giving me a wobbly smile, she added, “Let’s stick to the original plan, okay? No thinking. No worrying. Whatever just happened, let’s forget it. Let’s just stay busy...together.”

I looked past her to the house.

To the thought of hiding in an empty dorm, in an empty valley, with an empty heart.

Alone.

Loneliness was my prison—a place where I understood the parameters. I could control it, even if I couldn’t get free from it. But I couldn’t do that around her. She threatened all my foundations and all my barriers.

But her offer spoke to the darkness inside me. The part of me that was sick to fucking death of being alone. It wanted her. It wanted to be with her, in every capacity, all the damn time. I didn’t even have to be inside her. I just wanted to be near her. And what sort of curse was that? To find peace with the one person who was killing me?

A cloud skidded over the sun, casting us in shadow, taking away the heat in the sky and reminding me, all over again, that the chill in the air was because autumn had arrived and winter wasn’t far behind.

Our chores couldn’t wait.

I could continue having my mental breakdown while working.

“Just...promise to keep a safe distance. Don’t get too close to me.” I turned my back on her and moved toward the treeline.

She didn’t reply, and I didn’t stop.

We no longer had a chain locking us together, but she’d follow.

I knew she would.

We were joined in so many ways these days, so many disastrous, dangerous ways.

Sure enough, the soft patter of her feet chased me all the way into the trees.

Into my madness.

Into a hell I couldn’t get free from.