Meaner.

My body pinning hers down while I did something un-fucking-forgivable.

I was exactly what the guests had been.

Taking her against her will.

Making her helpless and traumatized.

“This can’t be happening,” she moaned, stricken and broken as I continued to ride her without permission.

Her legs flopped wider as I crawled into her body.

She closed her eyes and gave in.

She gave up.

She went lax beneath me and still I rode her like a monster.

No!

Stop it.

STOP IT!

I tripped backward.

I fell with my jeans looped around my ankles, smashing to my ass.

I couldn’t stop trembling. Shaking. Convulsing.

Sweat drenched me.

Nausea climbing up my throat.

No.

That couldn’t—

I didn’t.

FUCK.

But I had.

I remembered.

I remembered it all.

How I’d chased that release like a maniac.

How she’d stopped fighting beneath me.

How I hadn’t stopped—

“Jesus Christ,” I groaned, wiping my mouth with a quaking hand.

“Oh—” Gemma’s voice dragged my gaze to her. “Are you okay?” She reached out to me in surprise. Her face no longer pinched with pain from when I’d hurt her but lax with lust and welcome. “What happened? Did you trip?”

I glanced past her to the blood on the wallpaper and down to the carpet.

And I retched.

Right here.

I’d done it right here.

In this very fucking spot, I’d raped the girl I was in love with.

I’d had my cock deep inside her, my body punishing hers, and I hadn’t even been aware of it. I’d been trapped in a nightmare. A hallucination. A goddamn curse.

I’d hurt her past anything redeemable.

I’d raped—

Nausea spilled from my gut, lightning quick.

“Oh, shit.” I scrambled to my hands and knees, giving in to the repulsive abomination inside me.

I wanted to spew it all out.

I wanted every twisted and nauseating memory out of me.

Gemma dropped to her knees beside me, her hand landing on my back and drawing soft circles. “It’s okay. Was it the soup? What can I do?”

Nothing came up.

Acid burned my soul.

I wanted to die.

I wanted to grab a knife and stab it into my worthless heart.

Instead, I laughed.

A cold, empty laugh that cut like a blade. A blade that made me bleed, giving me a thousand cuts of sorrow.

Even now.

Even after I’d raped her, imprisoned her, taken everything she had to give, she still offered more. And because I was a motherfucking bastard, I would continue to take and take until she had nothing left.

No.

It ends.

Right now.

Scrambling to my feet, I yanked my jeans up and fought the wave of headaches and imbalance.

I couldn’t do this.

I wouldn’t.

She had to leave.

Before I did something worse.

Shouldering past her, I snapped, “Pack your bag, Gemma Ashford. We’re done here. I want you gone in the morning.”

I left before she could argue.

I broke into a run, crashing off a wall, struggling to stay standing through my horror.

Wrenching open the front door, I bolted from Fables, from her, and myself.

I didn’t stop running.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FORTY

I RAN.

Barefoot and dressed in a nightgown and hoodie, I ran as if the hounds of hell were on my heels.

“Kas!”

What the hell happened?

Why on earth had he left like that?

“Kas!” I ran harder, leaping over long grass, flinching as debris hurt my soles.

Nothing.

No sound of him.

No sight of him.

Just an empty, pitch-black night.

Slamming to a stop, I planted my hands on my knees and sucked in air. I tried to calm my galloping heart and rapidly building fear.

Where had he gone?

Why had he run?

“Kas! Where the hell are you?”

Holding my breath to listen better, I closed my eyes for sounds of his footsteps. The only thing that came back were the low rush of the river, the soft scurryings of animals, and the crushing hushness of darkness.

I pushed off again, jogging into shadows, doing my best to see the track we’d used to walk to the river when I’d helped him with the hydro generator.

Not that I’d helped him that day.

But maybe tonight? Perhaps tonight, I could finally help him.

He’d remembered something, I was sure of it.

He’d been on the brink.

He’d pushed me away because something had changed inside him.

I’d felt it.

And if I didn’t find him tonight—if I didn’t push...then it was over.

I didn’t know how I knew that, but it wasn’t false or fancy. I had a soul-deep conviction that Kas had reached a point of no return. He’d touched me as if he was saying goodbye, all while he bound me to him forever. He’d been full of inconsistency and defiance.

I would’ve given anything for him to speak to me.

To kiss me, whisper to me, confess everything that was slowly killing him inside.

I flinched.

When he’d seen the video of my brother, I thought he’d snap.

I’d been so close to grabbing the letter opener to protect myself if he suddenly regressed back into the man I’d first met. But then he’d become utterly engrossed with a silly home movie full of sibling teasing and idiocy. His face had gone stark with vibrant jealousy. His hands had gripped my recorder so hard, the plastic cracked in warning. He’d shown so much of his loneliness.

My heart had torn in two as he’d tripped up and away from me when the video had ended. He’d watched me, and I hadn’t needed him to speak. I’d already known. I’d known he blamed himself that I laughed differently with my brother. He cursed himself because I’d lived a life that he’d only just understood. He saw me happy when the entire time we’d been together, I’d been stretched to my limit, living on self-preservation mode, and stressed with new feelings.

I was freer with Joshua because he was my blood. I knew him. I didn’t know Kas on the same level of intimacy. We’d only just crossed the chasm from enemies to friends.

Yet he’d acted as if he’d give his very soul for a chance at that level of connection.

And God, I wanted to give it to him.

That was why I’d begged him to take me. Why I’d wanted him to slip inside me in the very same room where he’d taken me against my will. I wanted to replace bad with good. I wanted to show him I was strong enough to, not only forgive, but to move on and find happiness where there had once only been pain.

I slammed to a stop.

Oh, no.

Perhaps that was what he’d remembered when his eyes had glazed over, and he’d fallen to the floor with an agonizing grunt?

Had he remembered that night? The way he’d taken me as I’d screamed at him to stop?

But if he had...surely, he’d remembered what happened next?

The way I’d rocked on his lap.

The way he’d washed my hair and made me come on his hand.

The way we’d shared pieces of ourselves in the bath.

I swiped my hair back, wrenching it into a ponytail as despair filled me. I didn’t think he’d remembered it all. If he had, why had his body been so distraught? How had he ended up on all fours trying to be sick?

Why had he looked at me as if he wanted it all to stop?

He’d looked like a man who’d reached his limit.

A man who would rather choose death instead of fighting to exist in a world he could no longer survive in.

More panic flooded my veins.

No.

Surely, he wouldn’t—