My hollow stomach howled for food, but when I raided the pantry, I vomited it all back up again. I lived in a vicious cycle of eat, vomit, pass out, try again.

Days after days of agonizing sameness.

One foot in death and one in life, unable to find the strength to move forward.

I had no clock or calendar to know how much time had passed.

I had no one to ask who I was or why I was all alone.

I couldn’t remember anything.

Not a single, tiny thing.

I was a stranger.

A mystery.

Alone.

I pinched the brow of my nose with my good hand, no longer willing to be a little puppet for my scrambled mind.

Goddammit, no more.

With a heavy exhale, I gathered up the slithers of memories, snatched up recollections, and erased all emotion from the past. They all went into a box. And that box went into the sea. And that sea held monsters that devoured them until I had nothing in my head but her.

Gemma.

My prisoner who thought she could manipulate and control me.

I had to admit. She’d done a better job than any of the mistresses in my past. No one else had made me feel. No one else made my heart kick or body harden for her touch.

She was my enemy.

It was time she relearned her place.

Turning on the ball of my foot, I ordered my wobbly, bruised legs to walk out of the library, up the stairs (breathing hard and condemned to multiple breaks to gather strength), and into the bedroom where my trespasser had demanded a toilet and shower.

There, on the bed, was the leather cuff I’d stolen from Storymaker’s closet.

A leash that’d been used on all of us more than once.

A leash that would now be hers.

Snatching it from the covers, I dragged it over the carpet, the leather hissing behind me. My strength rapidly dwindled. My eyelids threatened to shut. My mind held autumn leaves and bracken.

I just wanted to sleep.

The ringing in my ears upset my balance. The fuzziness of my vision made me tired. The throbbing in the back of my skull hinted my broken arm wasn’t the worst of my injuries.

Touching the bump on my forehead from where she’d hit me with the shovel, I stiffened when I found none. No bump. No cut.

How much time had passed since that day and this?

What did it mean that I still suffered a concussion? One that seemed to have the power to steal, not just hours but days from me.

Gritting my teeth, I shoved away my questions, commanded my body to stay lucid for just a little longer, and tripped my way down the stairs to the library.

My steps were no longer coordinated as I stumbled over the threshold, back into a room full of paper words and fictional worlds. I crashed against the doorframe, the bookshelves spinning, my mouth turning sour with sickness.

I kept my swirling attention on the girl still sleeping on the floor.

Had she heard me buckle against the door? Was she still unconscious or just faking? If I went over there, would she pounce on me again? Would she use my weakness against me like she’d done ever since she’d pushed me off the fucking cliff?

Bits and pieces came back to me.

Her tying a rope around my wrists.

Her apologizing but still trapping me like all the others.

It didn’t matter that she’d tended to me. Storymaker himself had given me drugs and overseen my healing when a guest had grown particularly cruel.

My health was valuable to him. I had to stay alive to do his bidding. We all did.

She’s the same.

I didn’t think she’d found my valley by accident after all. I bet it was all planned. Her trespassing on my home, her running so I’d follow, her skills at climbing and knots and ropes, giving her the chance to push me into the sky.

Had I foiled her plans by surviving, or had I only played into her hands?

Now, I was broken in places and concussed in others.

I was easy prey.

Or so she thinks.

Rage flowed through my veins, granting me the power to push off the doorframe, cross the room, and tower over her.

Even if she was faking, so what?

She was small compared to me. Regardless of her unnatural strength; despite her stamina and knowledge that kept putting her above me in every possible way...she was still mine.

And I was done letting her think our roles existed in any other direction.

Dropping to my knees, I shoved off the blankets, snatched her leg, then lashed the cuff tight around her ankle.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWELVE

“WHAT THE—” I SWOOPED upright, my head swimming, sleep clinging to my thoughts. “What are you doing?!” My voice slurred, my reactions slow like syrup.

“Did you enjoy playing queen of the castle?” Kas snarled, his fingers working quickly around my ankle. “I hope you did because now it’s time to go back where you belong.”

I struggled. “What are you doing?!”

I tried to pull my leg out of his control.

And then I saw the leather cuff being buckled around my ankle.

“No!” I threw myself forward, limber from years at contorting myself on boulder faces, pushing ligaments to their extreme. “Don’t you dare!” Grabbing his hand, I jerked his fingers away, leaving the buckle still undone.

Triumph filled me only to die a useless death as Kas launched himself at me.

I wasn’t expecting it.

I’d spent almost two weeks at his bedside, nursing a man who could barely move without grimacing and passing out from pain. His explosive savagery caught me unaware, shoving me onto my back and planting a fist between my breasts.

Automatically, I wrapped my hands around his wrist, fumbling over the splint, recognizing the pain in his eyes from using an arm that wasn’t whole. The second my touch locked around his heated violence, he shivered.

His eyes went black, his shoulders bristled, the spark of tinder ignited, coaxing a flame from embers, shoving us back into the forest fire that never failed to roar between us.

I couldn’t catch a proper breath—partly from the pressure of his fist on my sternum and mostly because of the unmistakable need drowning in his stare.

“I suggest you yield,” Kas growled. “Don’t make me knock you out like you did me.”

“I didn’t knock you out—”

“I’ve never liked liars.” His fist spread out over my chest, splaying burning fingers over the swell of my breasts. “My second suggestion is you shut the hell up.” His eyes flashed as his thumb touched my nipple.

Accident or not, I shivered like an idiot.

Really, Gem!?

Common sense swiftly shut down any inklings of lust. I tightened my hands on his splinted wrist. “Let. Me. Go.” I added heat and anger with a fair dose of haughtiness. “I won’t ask again.”

“Keep asking all you want. You’ll just keep getting the same answer.” He bent over me, his nose kissing mine. “The chances of you being free again are zero.”

I gulped at the raw honesty on his ferally handsome face. The blatant cruelty in his bottomless, hollow-hallowed eyes. If I hadn’t witnessed him breaking apart in this very room, if I hadn’t washed his brow free from nightmare-sweat, and curled up beside him as he’d screamed in the dark, I would’ve shrunk into nothing and accepted that this was how I died.

This man could snuff out my life with a single finger.

He believed he owned me.

Unfortunately for him, I’d seen his secrets, I’d listened to his suffering, and I couldn’t be afraid of someone who desperately needed to be understood. To be given a chance to work through his torment. To trust someone to help instead of hurt.