However...

Books had been my saving grace. They’d been my only friend on those long winter nights and endless summer days. I’d read everything cover to cover, including topics that would help me defend myself if more enemies came to Fables.

My thumb found the spot, my fingers prepared to squeeze.

I bent to kiss her.

Her chin tipped up, stupidly trusting that I was as drunk on chemistry as she was. I wouldn’t lie. My head was swimming, and desire had replaced every inch of my concussion. I was rock fucking hard.

But I was looking at the bigger picture where I had a lifetime of seducing this girl. Whereas she was looking at a final, passionate goodbye.

Two people who belonged with each other yet continued to fight the inevitable.

Our lips brushed as I spoke into her mouth, “I’m glad you tried.”

“You are?” She kissed me back, her tongue flicking out to lick along my bottom lip. “Why?”

“You’ll see.”

I smashed my mouth to hers. I kissed her so damn hard.

She moaned.

I groaned.

And my fingers pinched hard around her carotid artery.

I kissed her while she kissed me back.

I kissed her while she began to thrash.

I kissed her as she gasped for air, then tumbled at my feet unconsciousness.

* * * * *

Well, what do you know?

It worked.

It worked so well, she’d been out cold for an hour before a soft mumble left her lips, and she twitched beneath the blankets I’d placed over her.

In that hour, while she’d remained in the forced sleep I’d granted, I tried to move her into the library—back to the bed she’d made for me. To swap our roles from patient to carer.

Unfortunately, my body had other ideas.

I was too weak to move her farther than the doorway. I was too light-headed to drag her across the marble or even carry her backpack to the corner where it belonged. Instead, I almost blacked out myself. I’d collapsed on my knees and seen stars, all while she’d slept like a corpse.

I didn’t know how long she would stay unconscious. The book had said some people stayed under for a few minutes to a few hours. I was on a tight timeline, so I had no choice but to abandon the idea of moving her and instead brought comfort to her. I placed a pillow beneath her head and slipped off her heavy backpack. I’d left her curled up in the middle of the kitchen and closed the door she’d tried to escape from.

And then, I used the rest of my meager balance and strength to climb up the stairs and enter Storymaker’s bedroom, where he kept the chain. Opening his drawer full of kinky apparatus, I clenched my jaw as the glint of metal winked in welcome.

My mind slipped.

I fell—

“Know what this is, Kassen?” Storymaker grinned. “Its name is Parable, and it will be your new best friend.”

I stood trembling, eyeing up the links of whatever fresh hell he planned.

Ducking to my ankle, where he’d already locked a leather cuff around me, he fastened another padlock to the shorter leash. With one snap of bondage, he increased the length by miles. My blood dripped down my legs, staining the leather and glittering red on the metal links.

“Ugh, someone get a bandage for Kas here,” Storymaker barked. “His whip marks are staining Parable.”

One of his guards strode from the library, no doubt going to fetch the kitchen maid and her box of medicine.

I could do with some medicine.

My body was burning up.

The twenty lashes I’d earned for stealing food for Elise and Nyx had come at a price. But I’d do it all over again. They were starving. He was working them too hard. I wanted to fucking kill him.

As the kitchen maid came in and stood behind me to tend to my flayed, bleeding back, Storymaker clasped his hands in front of him and muttered, “There are no locks on the doors and no bars on the windows, as you well know, Kas. You’ve been a good boy lately. You haven’t tried to run since I showed you what would happen to your precious friends if you did. But you are being a pain in my backside lately. I don’t care if you want to be fucked by all the guests. If you’re greedy enough to volunteer in all your friends' places, who am I to argue if the guests are okay with your ass over another’s? However—”

He rushed forward, shoving his face into mine.

I flinched as the kitchen maid swiped over a particularly deep gash, cringing away from Storymaker’s wrath. “I will not permit you to think you run this establishment, you little shit. You are mine. They are mine. You will do what I say when I say it, and if that means you have to wear Parable until the day you die at my feet, so fucking be it.” He grabbed the chain and slipped the links through his finger, marching farther and farther away, stopping at a pile of more chain by his desk.

Picking up the other end, he dangled a larger piece of leather.

And then, he slipped off his blazer and undid his black shirt.

Everything inside me froze over.

No.

Not him.

I’d been sodomised and abused. I’d been ridiculed and punished. I’d done everything he ever commanded because if I didn’t, my family would pay. Yet I’d never been fucked by our master.

He was into girls.

He—

“Oh, don’t panic, darling Kas.” Storymaker blew me a kiss. “I’m not after your tight hole, not unless you’ve swapped a cock for a pussy.” Wrapping the leather around his waist, he buckled it then snapped another impenetrable padlock into place.

Laughing under his breath, he tugged the chain, putting pressure on my ankle and pulling my leg forward. It was either move or fall.

I moved.

I moved away from the kind kitchen maid fixing my shredded back.

I moved with a straight spine and balled hands and stopped before Storymaker, understanding what this meant.

He nodded. “I see you get it.”

I dropped my eyes obediently. “Yes, sir.”

He tugged the chain again, motioning to the belt he now wore. “Wherever you go, I will feel it. If you try to go where you are not permitted, I will know. If you sneak out of bed to get food for those little bastards, I will be there.” He reached out, his hand landing on my head, sinking manicured fingers into my hair.

Fisting the strands, he snatched my head to the side as his face lost its groomed mask and slipped into the devil beneath. “You hear me, boy? I am the spider, and you are the fly. You are in my web, little Kassen. I suggest you tread carefully.”

STOP!

I couldn’t breathe.

I gasped and clawed toward the light, falling to my ass as my hands dropped miles’ worth of tarnished chain. It spilled around me like a sinister metal snake.

Digging both hands into my hair, even the pain of my broken arm couldn’t stop me from clutching the strands and doing my best to rip them out.

To rip the memory out.

I wanted it gone. Erased. Burned to ash where it belonged.

Please.

I sucked in another breath, this one untainted with the power to pull back the curtains that’d enclosed me. Slowly, the darkness receded. My stomach hurt as I shoved Storymaker and all his nasty games deep, deep inside me.

Gemma.

Shit.

Panic did the rest for me, shoving aside the fear of my past for the fear of my present.

She could’ve woken up by now.

She could’ve grabbed her bag and left, all while I broke like an idiot on a bedroom floor.

Stumbling to my feet, I snatched up the chain and tripped into the corridor. I crashed against the wall as I reached for the banister. The stairs blurred into one unending slide.